Aquaculture's Ability to Create Authentic Learning Experiences by Ethan Lee

Essential Question

How can the introduction of aquaculture into the classroom environment create unique and

authentic learning opportunities?

About the Project

It was only after finding out that students in my school were skipping class to go fishing at the local river that I realized that there was an opportunity to create meaningful learning

opportunities going unnoticed.

This project, inspired by those students and the efforts of the Nelson River Sturgeon Board,

expands upon the learning opportunities associated with the introduction of aquaculture into the classroom environment. This project could take the form of a simple aquarium filled with fish to a full-blown commercial aquaculture.

The Nelson River Sturgeon Board has been operating a program called “Sturgeon Day” where participating classrooms are able to care for juvenile lake sturgeon. Bringing this keystone species into the classroom has created authentic and relatable learning experiences for students all over Manitoba, similar programs also operate in British Columbia and Michigan, attesting to the validity of this practice.

Participants would interact with the aquaculture to learn more about what creates a healthy

ecosystem that can support marine life such as fish, molluscs, and crustaceans. Helping them to create and understand that there is a connection between the water in their local communities and water on a global scale.

Participants will also be encouraged to interact with communities diverse from their own, being connected through the common goal of aquaculture. Participants are able to learn and value unique and diverse perspectives when connected by a common goal.

Finally, participants in this program will be asked to compose and publish a piece that speaks to the impact the aquaculture had on them during their time in the program. These pieces will encourage participants to reflect on what they have learned and how their actions relating to water can have impacts at local, national, and global scales.

Examples of projects could take the following forms:

• Art Project

• Diary Entries

• Collage

• Essay

• Photo Collage

• Poetry

• Rant

• Vlog