Marine Mania

By Staff
Project teams high school, middle school
Students in Cinda Preuit's marine biology and zoology classes at Danville High School recently put their teaching skills to test.
The students completed a peer teaching unit with fifth and sixth grade students from Danville Middle School.
This teaching unit was funded by grants from LeadAmerica, Service Learning, and the Volunteer Center of Morgan County.
For several weeks, the students worked on five units for their "Marine Mania" project. The projects included Gyotaku or Japanese fish painting; a living marine touch lab with sea stars, brittle stars, urchins and anemones; a preserved lab with sharks, rays, skates, lampreys, eels; "Who's Your MaMa?" activity on marine communication; and the Benthic Zone, a 20 foot by 40 foot inflated black room with a scuba diver leading classes into the bottom of the ocean.
Middle school students and their teachers rotated from station to station every 20 minutes where high school students informed, quizzed and shared their knowledge.