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Dear Colleagues,

I am the education officer at Galaway Atlantaquaria, a medium-sized aquarium with native Irish aquatic species. I am currently working on a science programme for Irish secondary school, which is grades 9-12. We have had a great success with our grades 1-8 science programme, and now we are looking to the older kids.

My idea is to let these older kids have more control over their visit. I'd like to design a worksheet (I am a worksheet proponent!) with a number of open-ended tasks for the kids to do in any order they want to. These tasks would involve observations of the aquarium animals, interactions with some of the animals (we've got touch tanks available for this), and doing a number of science experiments. The science experiments would be available at manned kiosks throughout the aquarium, and the kiosk docent would be able to guide students through the experiments and ask (hopefully) insightful questions! I'm thinking of water-based experiments such as the "blubber glove", make a thermomenter, and water salinity and density, that can all contribute to an understanding of marine science subjects.

The idea is that the kids would have enough time to explore the aquarium on their own, while getting more intensively involved in marine science through the activities.

What do you think? Does anyone have experience with this sort of thing? Does anyone have comments or ideas?

Thank you for your willingness to help and share.

Best regards,

Marianne Mortensen
Education Officer
Galway Atlantaquaria

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