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Marine Biology

Course Structure
Students
Course Content
My Work

Course Structure

Marine Biology was offered as an eleventh and twelth grade half-year elective at Friends Select. All the students in the course had taken general biology and some of them had also taken A.P. biology the year before. Like all other science courses, marine biology met four times a week for three 40-minute periods and one 80-minute period. The 40-minute periods are usually used for lecture, demonstration or assessments, such as quizzes and tests. The 80-minute period is usually used for labs, although there was some flexibility in this schedule.

The class had 12 students, only one of whom was male. As in the general biology class, the desks were arranged in rows in front of a board at the front of the room and there were lab benches and additional work space at the back of the room. For lab, there was a wide variety of equipment, resources and materials available.

Students were assesssed in a number of different ways:

  • homework
  • tests and quizzes (multiple choice and short answer)
  • group and independent projects (i.e. Benthic Ecosystem research project and presentation)
  • weekly lab reports
  • connducting original research and presenting at the school's annual Math and Science Symposium

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Students

There was a wide range of student ability and interest in the marine biology class that I worked with at Friends Select. Most of the students seemed to have a romaniticized, pre-existing impression of what it meant to study marine biology (i.e. whales and dolphins). It was a challenge to interest and engage students in material relating to topics such as microscopic plankton. In addition, most of the students were seniors and seemed to be having a difficult time reminaing actively engaged in their school work after having already gotten into college.

There were a couple of students in the class who learned best through lecture, were easily able to grasp concepts this way and were able to take detailed notes while asking interesting and thoughtful questions. However, most of the students struggled with the lecture format and regularly expessed a preference for interacitve demonstrations and labs. These students offen also had difficulty on tests, quizes and homework when having to apply information and concepts they had learned in class to new situations.

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Course Content

The following are the major topics and concepts that were taught during the three months I was student teaching at Friends Select Upper School:

  • Oceanography
    • Waves, tides and currents
    • Unique properties of water
    • Marine abiotic conditions
  • Primary production in the sea
    • Plankton
      • Form and function
      • Importance
      • Upwelling
      • Seasonal Patterns (effects on migration)
    • Macroalgae
      • Form and function
  • Benthic Ecosystems (estuaries, coral reefs, deep sea)

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My Work

Classwork

After two weeks of observation, I took over the marine biology class for the remaining eight weeks that I was student teaching in the upper school at Friends Select. For the first half of this time, I used the three 40-minute periods each week for group lecture and interactive demonstrations. For the second half, I guided students though an independent research project.

Lab

Except when students were invloved in the independent research projects, I conducted an 80-minute lab once a week. I designed the following labs:

  • Phytoplankton: Observing Phytoplankton adaptations
  • Macroalgae: Making an identification key for six macroalgae species
  • Eutrophication: Measuing dissolved oxygen

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Sample Lesson: Marine Benthic Ecosystems

Five-week Lesson Plan


Goals

My goal was to create a unit that required students to take a more active role in their individual learning processes and gave them the opportunity to study in-depth one topic that they were interested in. I also wanted to take the focus off of the teacher and give students the chance to teach and learn from each other.

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Objectives

  • All students will gain an in-depth knowledge of a specific marine benthic ecosystem.
  • All students will be involved in the following steps of the long-term project:
    • Designing the focus research questions for all research groups
    • Designing the presentation guidelines for all research groups
    • Researching
    • Creating and giving a group PowerPoint presentation to their classmates
    • Writing test questions about their specific ecosystem that will be used in evaluating the knowledge of all the students in the class on all of the presented ecosystems

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Assessment

I wanted to be sure that since this was a long and timely project, that students would be assessed and receive feedback at multiple points during the process and not simply at the end.

  • Students will be required to demonstrate their understanding by completing the following work:
    • Presentation outline
    • PowerPoint slide show
    • Lesson plan for presentation
    • Class presentation (PowerPoint and interactive activity)
    • Test questions
    • Cummulative test
  • Throughout the entire project, students will be evaluated and receive feedback on:
    • Involvement in structuring and organizing the guidelines for the project
    • Depth of knowledge and research
    • Creativity
    • Contributions to the group effort
    • Timeliness in submitting work

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Lesson Plan

Week 1: Introduction

1. Brainstorm and Introduction (40 min.)

  • Tell the students that we will be beginning a new unit on benthic ecosystems and that they will be researching a specific benthic ecosystem and presenting the information that they learn to the rest of the class.
  • Since the students have already been introduced to the concept of a benthic ecosystem, ask them to brainstorm examples of specific benthic ecosystems around the world. Write these on the board (examples: Great Barrier Reef, the Florida Everglades, Delaware Bay Esturay, the deep sea etc). Include more examples of types of ecosystems that students may not readily think of (marshlands etc).
  • Give a PowerPoint presentation that highlights the major groups of benthic ecosystems and their characteristics and shows picture examples of specific benthic ecosystems around the world. This introduction should be short (20 minutes) and is only intended to give students some examples of ecosystems they may like to research more in-depth and a framework in which to be thinking about benthic ecosystems.

2. Introduction to the Project (80 min.)

Brainstorming Focus Questions (40 min.)

  • Tell students that, as a group, we are going to brainstorm and outline the focus questions that all the research groups will have to answer about the specific ecosystems they are researching. Tell the class that to begin you want to know what questions they have about benthic marine ecosystems in general.
  • Sit in a circle and ask one student to write the questions down, each on a separate piece of paper, as the class brainstorms.
  • After about 15 minutes, collect the papers and put them in the middle of the circle.
  • Ask if there are any questions that are very broad and might act as topics under which some of the other questions fall.
  • Arrange these broad topic-questions (i.e. What is the environment like?, What organisms live in the ecosystem?, How are these organisms adapted to their environment) in a row.
  • Ask if the remaining questions could be placed as subtopics under any of the existing broad topics (examples: What is the light availability like?, Is there high or low species diversity and why?). As students come up with ideas, arrange and rearrange the papers with the questions in columns under the broad topics.
  • Once all the topics are arranged, ask students if there are any additional questions that they would add or if there are any questions that they would take away, keeping in mind that this outline will guide the structure of their research and presentations. Make any final rearrangements and ask someone to copy down the topics and questions in an outline format to be typed and distributed later to the whole class.

Click here to view sample Focus Questions

 

Creating Presentation Guidelines (40 min.)

  • Tell the students that you want to get ideas from them about how to conduct their presentations.
  • Ask them to quickly write down three (3) things that they liked about presentations that they gave or were an audience for in the past.
  • Quickly share some of these ideas with the whole class.
  • Give the students the following basic guidelines. The presentation should:
    • Include a PowerPoint presentation.
    • Involve all group members.
    • Be between 20-30 minutes long.
  • Ask the students to work in pairs for about 15 minutes to brainstorm a set of guidelines for all the group presentations.
  • After 15 minutes, bring the group back together and ask each pair to share their ideas. Summarize the main ideas on the board.
  • After everyone has shared, summarize similarities between suggestions and ask if there were any ideas that seemed especially creative or interesting.
  • Have students discuss which elements seem most important to include and which would be less interesting or necessary.
  • Once everyone has agreed (or agreed to disagree), put the final guidelines on the board and copy them to type out and give out to all the students later.

Click here to view sample Presentation Guidelines


Week 2: Research

  • Students work in pairs or groups of three to select and research an ecosystem.
  • Students use time inside and outside of class to research and organize answers to the leading questions.

Week 3: Research and PowerPoint presentations

  • Groups turn in outlines of information that follow the format that they will use during their presentation. I review and return them with suggestions.
  • In class, students begin work on PowerPoint presentations. I spend one class period teaching those who are unfamiliar with the program the basics. They then continue to work on them independently. I stress that the presentations should:
    • Be simple and straight forward (not too many pictures or fancy text).
    • Highlight the main points without using large paragraphs of text.
    • Be catching to the eye.
  • Groups must print out and turn their slide show. I review them and make suggestions.

Week 4: Presentations

click here for refections on the use of PowerPoint an educational tool in this lesson

  • The groups present to each other in class, following the format that was decided on by the class at the beginning of the project.
  • Students evaluate each other using the same rubric that I use. Peer assessments are averaged as 50 percent of each group’s presentation grade.
  • The groups provide outlines of their presentations to the rest of the class highlighting the key points and important concepts. Students use these outlines to study for the test.
  • All groups submit three (3) test questions on their ecosystem and presentation to be complied into one test that all students take the following week.

Week 5: Test

  • All students take the test which covers information on all of the class presentations from the proceeding week.

Examples of Student PowerPoint Slide Shows

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