Team Marine Teaches The Youth

Pictured above: Team Marine teaches Mr. Guthrie's 8th grade science class at Culver City Middle School

We carpooled to Lincoln Middle School, Animo Leadership Charter High School, Culver City Middle School, and Santa Monica Alternative School House to give a presentation on our 10 R’s Curriculum. Each school varied with the age group we presented to, but overall we presented to grades 7 to 12. For each group we modified our lesson plan depending on the age group we were presenting to along with the language of our content. We first introduced ourselves and the documentary we had created concerning the negative impacts of single-use plastics and our Ten R’s solutions to the problem. As the video we presented ours Ten R’s power point which had content based on problems of single-use plastics, global warming, ocean acidification and our solutions. Then when we were done presenting we assigned students to four different stations the first one was based on the carbon cycle and explained to them the difference between a source and a sink. The second demo station was on ocean acidification which included dropping eggshells and chalk in vinegar to demonstrate how coral bleaching occurs. In addition to that demo we used a universal indicator to show how carbon dioxide makes the ocean acidic by blowing bubbles with a straw in distilled water. The third station involved two beakers filled halfway with the same amount of water, one beaker covered with a small net and an ice cube placed on both. Then we melted the ice cube on top of the beaker with the net with a hair dryer to show that glacial ice being melted by global warming can cause a higher sea level rise than sea ice melting. The last station included a club soda, a stopper with a tube, and tilted it towards the beaker with distilled water to show ocean acidification to show how carbon transfers to fresh water and makes the ocean acidic by verifying it with the universal indicator. Then after everybody had been to each demo station we played the carbon cycle game to see how much content they retained with station that pertained to it and handed out organic lollipops to those who guessed correctly.


Pictured above: Team Marine members Daniel Franco and Valerie Wacker do a lab on ocean acidification with 8th grade students at Culver City Middle School