Dear fans of the Adopt A Microbe project,
Greetings! I am writing to let you know that there is another opportunity to engage with deep sea science education and exploration coming up soon. Following on the success of the Fall 2011 expedition to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean (the premise for the last Adopt A Microbe project – http://aam.darkenergybiosphere.org/), I will be participating in a 4-week-long research voyage to our field site in April. Although we will not be launching a full-blown Adopt A Microbe project during this expedition, I am happy to announce that I will be working with “Classroom Connection” to bring the excitement of science at sea into the classroom. I hope that you will be able to join in the fun!
Like the Adopt A Microbe project, Classroom Connection – developed by a graduate student at the University of Southern California – uses hands on activities, blogs, photos and videos, and interviews with scientists to bring science into the classroom. You can read more about the background of the first Classroom Connection project here:
http://www.darkenergybiosphere.org/classroomconnection/5-2/
Originally developed in Fall 2011 to target special education classrooms, the project is expanding to be relevant to multiple classroom types and levels. During the upcoming project, which will begin on April 9, we will be offering 5-6 weeks of themed activities, interviews, blogs, Q&A sessions, and more. An initial schedule for this project (more details will be posted in the coming week), with the associated themes for each week, can be found here:
http://www.darkenergybiosphere.org/classroomconnection/teacher-resources/
As you can see, this project will cover a diversity of topics including ocean exploration, microbial life in the deep ocean, technology and more. For more details about the style of the activities and the other features of the project, you can browse through the archives from the Fall 2011 project here:
http://www.darkenergybiosphere.org/classroomconnection/archive/
If you are interested in participating in this project, or if you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at deepmicrobe@gmail.com
Kind regards,
Beth O.
The Adopt A Microbe project
PS – you can also follow along with the expedition on the cruise blog at Scientific American: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/expeditions/
