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Props for MARE Participants!

By on November 4, 2010 in Odds and Ends

I was browsing through the October 30 issue of The Lacey-Barnegat Times and was excited to see 2010 MARE Summer Institute participant Gina Verderosa featured in an article!  Gina received at $2,500 Go Green grant from the Ocean First Foundation to implement a variety of environmentally themed projects at the Joseph T. Donahue School in Barnegat, NJ.  The grant money will be used to fund the school’s annual participation in the National Green Week in February.  Each grade level will have an integral part in the program.  Fourth and fifth grade students in the MARE Club will be working on landscaping around the school, managing a composting bin with the younger students in grades K-3 and acting as role-model “green-keepers” for the entire school population.  Gina is advising the MARE club with fellow staff member Jane Goddard.   Gina has plans to involve the whole school in going green with projects for each grade level:

  • Kindergarten will create and care for an indoor garden using recylced materials and producing plants for Mother’s Day!
  • First grade will recycle bottle caps and facilitate awareness that they are not recycled by township recycling programs.
  • Second grade classes will start with the compost bin and maintain it daily to eventually produce soil for the gardens.
  • Third grade classes will start an outdoor garden to beautify the school landscape.
  • Fourth grade students will organize a campaign to increase the amount of paper, plastic, cans and bottles that is recycled in the school. 
  • Fifth grade classes will conduct energy audits and monitor recycling efforts at the school. They will analyze data and become the “report card” for the program.

BRAVO Barnegat crew!!! We are so proud of our MARE grads!

Check out your November 2010 issue of The New Jersey Education Association Reporter, in the Classroom Close up NJ section, you will see Rob Causton’s  Oxford Central School as one of the programs receiving NJEA Frederick L. Hipp Foundation for Excellence in Education funding for their Oceans and Estuaries program.  Seventh graders at the Oxford Central School traveled to Long Beach Island for a three-day camping and ocean/estuaries study.  Host Wendell Steinhauer joined the students at the Coast Guard Station on LBI and at the Viking Village commercial fishing port.   Thumbs up Oxford Central!  Thank you for spreading our love of ocean science with your students!

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How does MARE fit with the NJCCC STANDARDS?

By on November 4, 2010 in Odds and Ends

The honest answer is easily and everywhere!  The MARE activities span multiple disciplines including components of writing, reading, art, cooperative learning, math, history, physical education and of course Science!  These same activities often spark extension lessons in music, interpersonal skills, vocabulary and spelling, and theater.

For example, our second grade classes study The Sandy Beach in the MARE curriculum.  Since we have a bird’s eye view of Old Barney from our shores, the students were very interested in the lighthouse.  We often visit the sandy beach at Island Beach State Park or Long Beach Island, NJ as part of our unit.  We also contacted the wonderful people at the NJ Lighthouse Society for a school visitation.  Now, how did we meet our CCCStandards?

We started with the principles of Understanding By Design (UBD) and identified the “big ideas” that we wanted our students to understand from the lessons. For example, we wanted our students to understand that lighthouses serve a purpose and that purpose is navigation assistance for marine travel.  We also wanted the students to understand that lighthouse design follows a few common traits including shape, color and lense choice.  Lastly, we wanted the students to understand that lighthouses have both an impact and play an integral part in the sandy beach habitats where they are located.  Now, you may be thinking that we are straying very far from the content standards here….. but just wait…. it all comes together!  Keep an open mind and know that you can address your CCCStandards easily with this or ANY MARE activity.

Once our “big ideas” or key concepts were identified, we then chose our activities to accomplish these concepts.  We matched each activity with cross-curricular connections and with the Content Standards for our grade level. For this example, grades 1 to 2 are the target audiences, but it is adaptable for various grade levels.   Below are three of the eight activities we chose and how they fit into the Content Standards.

Activity MARE Activity NJCCCS Cross-Curricular Connection
Students will measure (ft.) and draw Barnegat Lighthouse on the playground using chalk.
  • 4.1 Number Sense
  • 4.2 Geometry/Measurement
  • 1.1 Creative Art
  • Math
  • Art
  • Sand sampling near lighthouse
  • Sand sample examination using microscopes.
  • Discussion
  • Record observations in journal
  • Navajo sand art
 Sand on Stage
  • 5.8 Earth materials5.1 Science Practices(observe and record)
  • 5.6 Structure and Prop. Of Matter
  • 3.3 Questioning & Discussion
  • 3.2 Writing
  • 1.2 Art History
  • Language Arts
  • Art
  • Social Studies
  • Bio blitz, identification and counting of plant and animal life at Barn.
  • Lighthouse State Park habitat, record using flip video, journals,drawings, etc.
  • MARE Seashore Charades will be used to have the students kinesthetically act out the adaptations of various organisms in the habitat both at high and low tides.
 Seashore Charades
  • 1.3 Performing Arts5.1 Science Practices(active investigation)
  • 5.3 Life Science
  • (various principles)
  • 3.2 Writing
  • 3.3 Speaking
  • 8.1 Technology
  • 4.4 Data analysis
  • Art
  • Technology
  • Language Arts
  • Interpersonal
  • Health
  • Phys. Ed.
  • Math

Many of the MARE lessons are correlated with the NJ Core Curricular Content Standards in the document “The Golden Lessons” available at this site:  https://marine.rutgers.edu/main/MARE/Getting-Started-with-MARE.html and also on the Cosee site at:  https://coseenow.net/mare/getting-started/

The MARE Master Trainers would also be happy to help you identify how your activity fits into the MARE program and the NJCCCS through the forum on this site.  Just send out a query and we will be glad to help you!

We realize that  justification is often requested or required by your supervisor.  When you bring a new idea to your school, such as the MARE club or MARE curriculum, it often falls upon you to be the “salesperson” for the product.  Please remember that your COSEE community is here to help you! I can promise you, it is definitely worth it!

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August 2010 National Report on Water Quality

By on August 14, 2010 in Odds and Ends

The Natural Resources Defense Council, a national environmentalist group, realeased its annual “Testing the Waters” report last week (8/1/2010).  The report contains results from over 200 bay and ocean beach water samplings over the past year. 

  • Beachwood Beach West was ranked the state’s dirtiest with 51% of samples exceeding safe bacteria levels
  • West Beach in Pine Beach had 33% of samples exceeding the state limit
  • Money Island in Toms River had 26% of samples exceeding the state standard
  • Ocean beaches fared better than bay beaches with levels of fecal bacteria minimal or non-existent
  • Jennifer Street in Stafford Twp. and Parkertown Road Beach in Little Egg Harbor had no samples that exceeded state limits.

Experts believe that most of the bacteria content in local waterways is the result of leaky septic sytems and even public sewerage facilities, as well as pet waste that is washed down storm drains and fed through outfall pipes into the bay.

Solutions:

  • Properly cleaning up pet waste
  • Maintaining septic systems
  • stormwater management plans
  • Maintain and monitor sewerage systems
  • Proposed laws to require fertilizer manufacturers to sell only low-nitrogen products
  • Legislation to require and fund stormwater management plans

More information is available at: https://www.nrdc.org/      and   https://www.nrdc.org/water/oceans/ttw/titinx.asp

One Ocean, one chance at making a difference.

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