Great project! When I saw the thread title I immediately started imagining the shop class building the stand, computer science team working on the Apex and a website, some young apprentice plumbers doing all the PVC work, etc., but I imagine that would just take way too much time & coordination. What kind of curriculum will you build around it? Did that have to be part of the grant proposal?
Haha I did all the plumbing and bought the stand. The shop classes did just finish a new stand for my 75g freshwater tank yesterday, however, and they did a fantastic job. They even matched the stain to the saltwater stand so that they look nice together. I need to drain and move it tomorrow if I have time. We (well, the other bio teachers - I no longer teacher regular Biology), look at some of the plants from the freshwater tank under microscopes during photosynthesis labs to see the chloroplasts moving inside the leaf cells.
I teach computer science classes as well and will touch into the apex programming if we have time at the end of the year. We also touch into some very basic web page development, and I may try to have them make a site for the tank through that (my Environmental Science classes are going to be making "bio sheets" on each of the living things in the tank, including bacteria, pods, coral, cuc, & fish. I imagine them being like large "baseball cards" for the life). I'll have the info from the cards put into a website (probably just do it through an assisted website building platform like wix or something. I'm afraid doing it from scratch would be way over their (and my) heads).
The main curriculum I proposed the grant around was ecology, water quality, & conservation which are some of the main topics in this class. We'll be hitting ecology starting probably mid to late November and continue that next semester, and we'll hit conservation sometime next semester. I'll touch on photosynthesis and cellular respiration here at the end of the month, and the pH graphs from the apex will be a really nice tool for that. It's crazy how much that changes when they all show up in the morning! Some very generous people on here sent me some coral skeletons and PM'd me pictures of those corals alive in their tanks to use during the conservation unit, which should go nicely with the living stuff in my tank. I also had a chemistry teacher on here share a lab on acids dissolving coral skeletons which should be a great addition. I plan to share some of it on here as we go along, but I won't be able to add any students' pictures. We've done a little bit of water quality stuff so far, but didn't use the tank much other than basic nutrient testing due to it not having much life in it yet.
I recently had a company on here contact me about donating pods to the tank, and I am doing some research to plan a lab around them. My goal with it is to give the students notes on phytoplankton and pods, then task them with designing a small habitat to grown & harvest them based on their needs we discuss. I think it'd be a fun way to get the kids involved in the food webs & lower trophic levels that most people overlook. Plus, it could easily be made into a competition which always gets the kids more into learning something. Hopefully it all turns out as planned!
The kids really enjoy it so far, although they are a little impatient with how slowly I'm adding everything currently. The lesson in patients may be the most important thing they learn!
