Tag Archives | physical education

Props for MARE Participants!

By Susan Haskell 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!

How does MARE fit with the NJCCC STANDARDS?

By Susan Haskell 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!

2010 MARE Summer Institute: Let’s Get Physical, Day 4

By Susan Haskell on August 13, 2010 in Summer 2010

Kinesthetic Fun With Rob Causton

The MARE curriculum is an all inclusive smorgasboard! Knowledge from the classroom is included in physical education games and activities, thanks to the imagination and talent of Mr. Rob Causton. Participants worked cooperatively in teams during the Vent Shrimp Kinesthetic Activity, where bean bags represented vent shrimp who must live in clearly defined areas surrounding hydrothermal vents in order to survive. Physical education goals such as tossing, running, and catching were imbedded in the fun and educational activity. For more information and corresponding core curriculum content standards please visit Mr. Causton’s website at: https://www.oxfordcentral.org/causton/. Remember the words of advice from Rob, “Stay flexible, make the MARE curriculum fit your needs. The information/ knowledge is important, not necessarily how we deliver it.” Hints: Special needs modifications=they take the first turns to throw the bean bags, Playing cards are a quick easy way to make (4) teams (4 suits) and order participants by number, Avoid competition (winners/losers) by having teams try to improve their own score with each round.

Measuring Temperature with Dr. Carrie

The Summer Institute crew used non-contact temperature sensors by Pasco (PS-2000) to determine the indoor and outdoor temperature in various areas. These sensors measure temp by determining the amount of heat energy given off by an object. They detect infrared radiation and use this value to estimate temperature. Two kits of these sensors can be borrowed from the Marine and Coastal Science Building in New Brunswick for your classroom use. Scientists use similar sensors on satellites to measure the temperature of the land and ocean from space. Images are produced on computers, with red=hot blue=cold. Students can compare local environmental temperature with data available for daily average, state average, and country’s average. Student friendly data is available online at: https://climate.rutgers.edu/ Collecting data and using it is a key part of the MARE curriculum. Let’s get our students thinking and acting like scientists!

Ocean Home-Swimming Fishes with Laura Dunbar

Laura shared a great activity with a human-sized gameboard designed by Rutgers students Jason Turnure and Jason Werrell. It was used to demonstrate how changes in water temperature affect fish distributions and, ultimately fisheries. With the expected change in ocean temperature due to global climate change, many commercial fish populations will move in response. As a result this will have a “domino” effect on surrounding populations. One Ocean, one habitat, one change, many repurcussions! Further directions and the fish cards are available on this Cosee site: https://coseenow.net/blog/ocean-home-swimming-fishes/.

Using Literature with MARE by Karen Lobby and Crystal DiBetta

Think about your daily life, what percentage of your daily reading is nonfiction? Most participants replied 75%, 90%. Does your classroom reflect your daily practice? Using nonfiction in your language arts lessons reflects the national and state standards, morrors tasks on standardized tests, and provides a way into literacy that narratives cannot. Academic achievement in school relies heavily on informational reading and writing. Above all, nonfiction motivates students with its beautiful, engaging and interesting photographs and information! Be sure to refer to the list of resources Crystal provided. A few highlights to investigate on the list: science journals or notebooks in the 8th grade list (Antarctica, Penguins), timely books on Jacques Cousteau in the 4th grade books (100th anniversary of his birth), and the Tsunami books in the 5th grade list (going out of print). Crystal also recommended that you join: The National Science Teachers Assoc. Sign up to receive their journal; which includes the best of the best trade books, published in March. Join at: https://www.nsta.org/ ($75 fee, $34 if you are a new teacher of less than 5 years experience). Crystal also recommends The National Geographic nonfiction newsletter for tips and techniques on using nonfiction with your students. Sign up is free online at https://www.nationalgeographic.com/resources/ngo/education/teacher_store/product_lines/windows/index.html Karen reminded the participants to utilize newspapers and other periodicals for timely information on marine science. Encourage your students to demonstrate their knowledge in different ways: acrostic poems, build a windsock to show the zones of the sandy beach,use ABC books with any grade level where students demonstrate information in an alphabetical book or list. One of Karen’s hints: Give parents and staff members a small zip lock bag when they head off on vacation to collect sand samples from around the globe for your classroom.

The Blah, Blah,Big, Big, Blog, Blog from Susan and Mike

Remember, the purpose of this blog is to keep our community of Marvelous MARE Enthusiasts COMMUNICATING!!!

Do you have a comment on the Summer Institute? send it to the Blog through Comments!

Do you need an idea or help with your project? send it to the Forum for an ALL Call for ideas!

Are you trying to recall the mountain of information we crammed into the 4 day Institute? Check the daily record in the Blogs!

Do you want to plan an Ocean Day or Ocean Week at your school? Send a question out to the Forum or Check the Blog for our ideas on how we started!

You can search the Cosee site using the search box. Blogs are “tagged” by topic to help you find the one you need. The search box will search these “tags” for you!

Is there a topic in your current curriculum, that you want to incorporate MARE into? Send Mike, Laura, Karen, Crystal, Rob or Sue and email or post it in the Forum and watch the ideas swim into shore!

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Tag Archives | physical education