GLIN==> IL-IN Sea Grant News: Great Lakes Classroom Activities Enhance Science Learning

[Irene Miles <miles@uiuc.edu>]

May 7, 2007
 
Source: Terri Hallesy (217) 244-8809; thallesy@uiuc.edu
               
Rosanne Fortner (614) 581-7684; fortner.2@osu.edu
 
Great Lakes Classroom Activities Enhance Science
Learning
 
URBANA - Did you know that the Great Lakes make up the largest
surface fresh water system on earth? Educating students about ocean and
Great Lakes topics can enhance their math and science skills and foster a
stewardship ethic, which is key to the wise use of these resources,
according to the 2004 Ocean Commission report. A new collection of
classroom activities makes these goals that much easier.
 
The Greatest of the Great Lakes is a CD-ROM of 41
multidisciplinary activities for grades 4-10 that bridge science with
math, geography, environmental studies and language arts. Funded through
COSEE Great Lakes (Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence), this
collection offers insight into current Great Lakes concerns, as well as
potential solutions. 
 
"These Great Lakes activities have been in existence for some time,
but haven't been discovered by many educators," said Rosanne
Fortner, COSEE project leader and professor emeritus, The Ohio State
University. "We chose activities that have been used in classrooms
successfully over the years and that address COSEE science goals."
 
The collection is designed to enhance a number of learning skills,
including inquiry, data interpretation, hypothesis development and
decision making. Activities chosen for this collection have been aligned
by classroom teachers to state and national science and earth system
standards. 
 
"Classroom activities included in The Greatest of the Great
Lakes are organized to make the collection more user-friendly for
teachers," said Terri Hallesy, Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant education
specialist and co-coordinator of this curriculum project. "We
recognize that teachers are busy. They can easily look for activities by
grade, instructional mode or subject matter, for example." 
 
COSEE Great Lakes is part of a network of regional centers that have been
established, in part, to promote a vision of ocean education as a way to
foster a more scientifically literate workforce and citizenry. Funding
from the National Science Foundation and NOAA-National Sea Grant is
divided among seven programs that make up the Great Lakes Sea Grant
Network: Illinois-Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio,
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. 
 
Next, the COSEE team will create Fresh and Salt, a collection that
includes ocean and Great Lakes classroom activities. "The idea is
that ultimately, students on the ocean coasts will learn about the Great
Lakes and Great Lakes students will learn about the oceans,"
explained Fortner. Educators interested in reviewing and pilot testing
Fresh and Salt activities can contact Terri Hallesy at
thallesy@uiuc.edu or (217)244-8809.
 
If you would like to order The Greatest of the Great Lakes, send
your request and a $15 check payable to the University of Illinois to
Susan White, 388 NSRC, 1101 W. Peabody Dr, Urbana, IL 61801. Call (217)
333-9441 or email white2@uiuc.edu for more information on the
CD-ROM.

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Irene Miles
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant
386 NSRC
1101 W. Peabody Dr.
Urbana, Il 61801
(217) 333-8055
FAX (217) 333-8046