In the spirit of following up on Bob Ginsburg's suggestion that successful approaches to IYOR be shared, here's a brief description of an activity suitable for elementary school-aged children:
During February, 1997, first graders at Kocurek Elementary School in Austin, Texas, used brightly-painted scrap materials to construct an exhibit which portrays the beauty and diversity of a coral reef. The students' individual thoughts, captured in their writings and drawings, have been bound into a small booklet that travels with the exhibit. Their understanding of reef conservation issues is illustrated with additional narrated sketches that are displayed nearby and reduced to form an inexpensive, black-on-blue handout.
In March, 14 of the first graders, along with their parents, S. Wolter, and two school administrators, showed several hundred other children how to make paper coral polyps (many of which were temporarily added to the exhibit) at two local children's festivals ("Austin Science Fun Day" and "University ChildFest"), while J. Lang offered each set of adult visitors copies of the children's conservation handout and the International Year of the Reef pamphlet (which had been inexpensively reproduced with black ink on blue paper). The exhibit was on unattended display throughout April in the Austin Independent School District's 1997 Student Art Show.
Note that, beginning in January, the students had many opportunities to examine skeletons of reef animals and coral reef videos, books, posters and photographs. Hence, the children already were quite knowledgeable, and had become excited at their chance to "help save the corals of the world", when they began to construct the reef exhibit. Some of the specific construction techniques were contributed by their art teacher, or by older students and parents visiting their classroom.
A brief description of the coral polyp and reef construction methods are given below. Details about our integrated thematic teaching methods, the resulting conceptual and academic development of the students, useful resource materials, etc., will be available by July. To learn more at that time, contact:
jlang@uts.cc.utexas.edu (Judith C. Lang)
Texas Memorial Museum
(512) 471-4954 (Voice)
(512) 471-4794 (Fax)
OR
Susan Wolter <swolter@tenet.edu>
Kocurek Elementary School
(512) 414-2547 (Voice)
(512) 282-7824 (Fax)
CONSTRUCTING A CORAL POLYP.
Contributed by D.K. Hagman
Students who have already learned how to do this activity can help teach it to other children.
MATERIALS: Colored multi-purpose paper cut into small rectangles ranging in sizes from 6 x 1O cm to 7 x 21 cm (2 x 4 in. to 3 x 8 in.), scissors, transparent tape.
Optional - marking pens, colored pencils, colored tissue cut in similar sized rectangles.
PROCEDURE:
OR (An Alternate Method Devised by the Students)
Optional:
A. Use the marking pens or colored pencils to decorate the polyps with drawings of their algal symbiants or nematocysts.
B. Make a similar polyp with a smaller diameter using tissue paper of either coordinating or contrasting colours. Stuff the tissue paper polyp inside the tube of the original polyp to create a polyp with a more complicated morphology.
OTHER SEDENTARY ORGANISMS:
Algae, sponges, soft corals and stony corals, etc, can be made of diverse paper and styrofoam scrap materials: toilet paper and paper towel tubes, cupcake holders, egg cartons, meat or produce trays, etc. Each is cut, broken or torn to create the desired shape, given several coats of a water-solube paint, then attached to the reef base (see below).
The models can be made to look more realistic with a little imagination, and glue or a glue gun (adult use only!). For example, a coloured pipe cleaner bent into folds makes the ridges of a brain coral or the tentacle of a large-polyped coral; cheesecloth, irregularly splashed with dabs of paint approximates the surfaces of agariciid corals; paper polyps (see above) can be attached to the surfaces of the stony and soft corals, or bunched together on the bottom to make a colonial sea anemone; Fruit Loops (a children's cereal that looks like coloured Cheerios) can become sponge oscules; a small ball of coloured yarn to which five short "arms" are attached is a brittle star that can then be wrapped around a sponge; two adjoining sections of an egg carton form the valves of a clam, etc. We suggest no use of candies or other sweets, however, regardless of their potentially-useful shapes.
MOTILE, BENTHIC ORGANISMS
Bubble algae, turf algae, starfish, brittle stars, sea urchins, octopus, sting rays, other bottom-dwelling fish, etc., can be made of soft coloured sticks of clay or cellu-clay (which is similar to paper mache but easier to mold). (Coloured tooth picks can be used for the urchin spines.) Once the clay or cellu-clay has dried, the organisms can be painted with tempra paints.
Coloured pipe cleaners can also be bent in diverse ways to fashion roundworms, starfish, tubeworms, and other mobile animals.
LARGE REEF FISHES
Draw duplicate outlines of interesting fishes on plain white paper. Decorate the "outer" side of each outline with coloured pencils or marking pens.
Staple the two halves together (do not allow young children to use a stapler by themselves), leaving a space to stuff the fish with paper tissues. Staple the opening shut, then glue a piece of plastic fishing line or heavy thread to the back of the fish for later suspension from a dowel extending above the reef.
SMALL SCHOOLING FISHES:
Wooden ice-cream sample spoons or the round ends of tongue depressors can be painted, and then further decorated with dots or stripes in a contrasting color with a permanent marking pen. An adult can use a glue gun to connect several fishes to a length of fishing line or heavy thread, which is then attached to one of the dowels.
REEF BASE
Irregularly-shaped pieces of brightly-painted, styrofoam packing material can be glued to pieces of stout, painted cardboard to approximate the cracks, crevices and uneven topography at the base of a reef. Larger pieces placed towards the rear and center of the model help create a natural mound effect, and increase the visibility of each student's contribution. The cellu-clay (see above) can also be applied over the styrofoam to modify its shape or add texture. After the sedentary organisms (see above) have been attached to the cardboard or styrofoam creations, pale green and white styrofoam "peanuts" can be glued onto any remaining unused spaces to create an algal pavement.
BACKDROP AND DISPLAY
A frame that is about 6 ft. high and of appropriate horizontal dimensions to fit under and behind the table on which the exhibit rests can be constructed of 5/8 in. diameter PVC pipe (or equivalent material). A backdrop of blue construction paper, on which a simple reef scene is either painted or glued, can be taped to the frame. The large reef fishes and the small schooling fishes can be suspended from dowels that extend horizontally above the reef at right angles to the frame: "anchors" for the dowels being holes drilled in the top horizontal support of the frame. If the table is located near a door or fan, the fish move in response to gentle breezes. Blue cellophane can be draped over the dowels, adding to the underwater atmosphere.
html-conversion: 9-7-97, R. Leinfelder, German IYOR-organizing team