When Pamela Tanner took over as executive director of Westside Atlanta Charter School last year, she brought two things: educational expertise and a particular affinity she wanted to share with the 360 students.
“I fell in love with scuba diving about 10 years ago, and now I dive all over the world with the National Association of Black Scuba Divers,” she said. “So creating a student-centered program around the ocean was a dream come true.”
Last year, Tanner and fellow diver Kelli Edwards, who works on water quality for Fulton County, started brainstorming ways to make that dream a reality.
“We looked at the Georgia standards of excellence and the seven essential principles of ocean literacy to design an experience to help students think about how oceans impact weather, climate, diverse life and ecosystems, and particularly how oceans and humans are intricately linked,” she said.
A $20,000 grant from the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation provided the support to create the Oceans Stewards Program, an after-school series that met once a month through the spring term. Students in grades four through seven were invited to participate, and the group was capped at 25 to accommodate the hands-on activities around lessons on how the ocean moves, how ocean chemistry affects ocean life and how to measure ocean density. Students also visited the Georgia Aquarium, heard from marine experts and took field trips.
“We also introduced them to scientific instruments like refractometers and Secchi discs that measure turbidity – not necessarily things students at that age get to do,” said Tanner. “And we had three teachers who led informal, experiential learning that was really fun. It turned out to be a good way to model how you can teach the standards in a non-traditional way.”
The program concluded last month with a trip to the coast where students visited the Tybee Island and Savannah State marine science centers and Gray’s Reef Ocean Discovery Center to learn about marsh life, reefs and the ocean’s impact on Georgia.
Based on the program’s positive reception and a waiting list of participants, Tanner plans to apply for more grants to continue the project. And she’s willing to share the lessons plans she and Edwards developed with other interested educators.
“This is definitely the work we do outside of our day jobs,” she said. “But we really want to improve science education, especially in this area.”
Information about Westside Atlanta Charter is online at wacs.us.
SEND US YOUR STORIES. Each week we look at programs, projects and successful endeavors at area schools, from pre-K to grad school. To suggest a story, contact H.M. Cauley at hm_cauley@yahoo.com or 770-744-3042.
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