At the Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI), teams of 5th grade students from Willard School in Sanford are working out solutions to questions about the X-Fish, a mystery fish they will identify by the end of their hour-and-a-half stay at the Institute, located on Commercial Street in Portland.
This program, LabVenture!, is supported by businesses, foundations and individuals throughout Maine. It is available free of charge to any 5th and 6th grade class in Maine, and reached 75 percent of Maine’s 5th and 6th graders in 2007. Free transportation on a comfortable bus is included for public schools; private schools provide their own transportation.
LabVenture! is one of many ways in which GMRI fulfills its mission to further the science aspirations of young people. The institute also is dedicated to creating a world-class marine research laboratory on Portland’s working waterfront and to promoting collaboration between fishermen and scientists that supports sustainable use of the Gulf of Maine.
At one station in GMRI’s Cohen Center for Interactive Learning, four students don lab gloves, and one gingerly retrieves the sample X-Fish (quite dead) from a plastic container. Another sets the display screen in action and the group prepares to follow directions relayed on screen and by voice. The program is designed to teach the scientific method: First, ask a question: “What does the X-Fish eat?” Then, formulate a hypothesis based on initial observation — in this case, possible foods ranging from plankton to small fish. Next, collect evidence to prove or disprove the hypothesis. Students are guided by questions like “What can you tell from the fish’s mouth?” “Examine the contents of an X-Fish’s stomach.”
To help students answer the latter question, their kiosk is equipped with a microscope and slide containing contents from an X-Fish stomach, and the display screen shows a scientist cutting open a fish’s stomach and squeezing out the contents. Reactions are immediate: “Eeeeewwww”… “That’s cool!”… “You don’t have to look.”
After using a small touch screen at the station to answer all the questions, students check out and revise their hypothesis. Some groups who visit the station correctly identify the food; others hang on to erroneous conclusions and miss the mark. But all of them, correct or not, are engaged by the process and having a great time.
This is true at the remaining stations, which include activities centered on other questions about the X-Fish: “How do fish behave in a school?” “Find the X-Fish in the Gulf of Maine” and “Identify the X-Fish.” In each situation, additional information and technology is introduced, and students have the opportunity to learn in different fashions.
Understanding fish behavior in a school includes a good dose of kinetic release as students are told, “It’s your turn to be a fish.” They are instructed to run around the cylindrical tank that holds a group of fish and react as the fish would to a warning that a shark is nearby. Copying the school in the tank, they scramble to dodge and weave together as one clump rather than taking individual escape routes.
“Finding the X-Fish in the Gulf of Maine” takes students on two virtual boat trips, one with a scientist on a research vessel and the second with a commercial fisherman. They are taught how to find schools of fish by reading an echogram and learn about places in the Gulf of Maine that fishermen and scientists traditionally visit, such as Jeffreys Ledge and Platts Bank. The commercial fishing expedition tallies how much money they make on their virtual run, creating bragging rights for those who do well. Later, students are encouraged to think about the expenses of taking out a fishing boat and how they diminish profits.
At the station that questions the identity of the X-Fish, students use cards that picture several different fish found in the Gulf of Maine and are shown ways to distinguish between them, such as by examining length and fin placement. They compare the pictures to the specimen fish, forcing open the mouth and bending it this way and that to get a better look. “Watch out,” one exclaims. “You’re going to break the fish!”
While students are immersed in these activities, cameras at each station send pictures to technicians working in an upper control room who will create CDs that record each group’s activities at the various kiosks throughout the morning. Every student will take home a CD and can use a personalized web site for further study.
At the end of the session, students gather for a summation by Meredith Enfemia and Dave Laliberte, who initially gave a three-screen PowerPoint introductory overview of the Gulf of Maine before students began to visit the stations. That presentation included a topographic look at the Gulf of Maine watershed from Mt. Katahdin to the coast and then across the fascinating maze of trenches and banks beneath the water. It also captivated students with pictures of different types of plankton and other inhabitants of the Gulf. Now, Enfemia and Laliberte focus on the X-Fish. They use video clips from each group’s work and provide further information to prepare for a final vote on the X-Fish’s identity.
This time everyone gets it right, but they agree with Laliberte that they should keep it a secret, not spoil the mystery for subsequent groups.
This program is just one of several educational opportunities provided by GMRI. Others include Vital Signs, a program that uses handheld computing technology to help students, scientists and fishermen observe, collect and share environmental data.
There is also a GMRI website that provides information about a wide variety of marine related subjects and current research efforts with topics like All About Turtles, Global Climate Change Activities, Marine Mammals and Undersea Landscapes.
Suggested activities help teachers bring aquatic science into their classrooms. A second site, the Today in the Gulf of Maine blog, posts interesting monthly articles by Ed Seidel, Science Translator for the institute.
For further information, visit the GMRI web site, www.gma.org or the blog site, www.todayinthegulfofmaine.com.