Boys & Girls Club members get hands-on experience with sea life via
Ocean Institute’s mobile aquarium.
Ocean and wildlife educators are making a splash at the Boys & Girls
Club of Laguna Beach.
Club members recently enjoyed a hands-on
lesson about the ocean’s creatures in a “visiting classroom”
presentation by the Ocean Institute of Dana Point, sponsored by its
“Adopt-a-Class” program and the Hearts of Montage. Club pre-schoolers
took a field trip to the institute, where they explored the depths of
the sea.
After story time in the classroom with Eric Carle’s “A
House for Hermit Crab,” the children got to observe and touch creatures
in a mobile aquarium and compare and contrast them with those
illustrated in the book.
“The favorite part of the visiting lab
for the kids was touching the animals,” said Terry Anne Barman, early
childhood and family services director at the club. “They got to feel
sea urchins, stars and anemones and hold hermit crabs in their hands.”
The
inquisitive group of kids were excited to discover that hermit crabs
would crawl out of their shells if they held their hands still and were
quiet, Barman said, and to learn that when starfish lose their legs,
they grow new ones.
“These hands-on activities are so important
for young children,” she said. “It’s especially exciting to provide this
opportunity to low-income children who don’t often have these types of
learning experiences.”
The club’s Even Start Preschool Program
kids took a guided tour of the institute and learned about the tidal
animals and their natural habitats through site seeing and hands-on
activities.
Staff members engaged the young minds in learning
activities that combined sea life, counting and ABCs, Barman said, which
was developmentally appropriate and of great interest to the kids.
“They
also learned to identify animal sounds and specific environments
through slides and auditory exercises,” she said.
“These kids
will be able to pull on this real life experience later in life to help
them learn and to generate enthusiasm for the sciences, which is a great
thing.”
The club plans to explore Laguna’s tidepools with the
kids in the near future, to further their education about sea life and
caring for their environment.
The Hearts of Montage is a
philanthropic program at the Montage Resort and Spa.
Source: Coastline Pilot - http://tinyurl.com/y9dc9uj