Teachers Here? Looking For Tank Lesson Plans

blesum

blesum

Member
I teach Junior High Special Ed classes and have a new (used) 120 gal tank in my room - I plan to tie it in with as many of my lesson plans as possible. Wondering if anybody else here also taught and has some lesson plans already for this. Some are obvious - Writing exercises describing the environment, what they think will happen, personalities of each creature, etc. Science - chemical balance, ecosystem, measurements, etc.
Anybody else? I realize this might be a long shot but...

-Blesum
 
jmick

jmick

Active Member
Not a teacher and I wouldn't know where to begin with a lesson plan but I think it's a great way to help capture your students attention and I hope it's a great teaching aid!
 
mystic7

mystic7

Member
I can't help either but as someone with a son in special education classes I wish you the best of luck. I belong to a local reef aquarium club that is filled with extremely knowledgeable people who love to help out with things like this. If you have no luck here try there. There's no fee to join the message board and you don't have to be a member for people to help you. I can't post the url here but just do a lookup for Reef Aquarium Society of Charlotte in Google. It'll be the first link that comes up. Good luck.
 
27mtaylor

27mtaylor

Member
What type of Special Ed kid are they? I guess what I mean is, how in depth can you get with them? Some of the ones that I deal with in Special Olympic are simply kids that may have some behavioral type problems. Anyway, you could teach the nitrogen cycle and use the test kits to show all the different levels of ammonia, nitrites and nitrates (have a small lab session for them). You could also teach how ph and other factors affect the tank. Fish compatibility, the food chain, etc. The science portion could be endless. Seems like you are headed in the right direction already. Good luck!
 
coachklm

coachklm

Active Member
my wife is a high school math teacher and a tank is great for displacement volume and other calculations.
 
blesum

blesum

Member
Thanks M7, I'll look into it.
27MTaylor - The students are primarily deaf and hard of hearing - So basically mostly normal kids with language delays.
I'll search around the 'net later today for pre-made lesson plans so I'm not reinventing the wheel.
-Blesum
 
spanish dancer

spanish dancer

Member
You can graph the ph, ammonia, etc of the aquarium water, and correlate it with current events that have happened in the aquarium...like a death of a fish, for example.
 
birdy

birdy

Active Member
i have always thought in a classroom setting a tank that had only aquacultured stuff in it would show the kids how to be aware of the environment, You can get aquacultured rock and baserock to show you don't have to remove stuff from the ocean, find a local saltwater aquarium group and get only frags of corals, try to get fish that are bred in captivity (this is going to be the hardest as there is not a real wide selection of different species. A lot of inverts are captive bred also. You may not be able to have a 100% aquacultured tank but you could probably do a 90% one.
Also I would highly recommend a refugium, this way the kids can learn about natural filtration, not just the man made gadgets.
 
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