This year students from local middle and high schools learned about and operated Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs), they also got hands-on — by exploring a huge 25- by 35-foot map of the Pacific Ocean — with ocean currents, trenches, tectonic plates and other oceanographic topics as part of the annual Sea Week event, organized each May in Juneau.
Alaska Sea Week is a kindergarten through sixth-grade marine and wetland curriculum that was developed in the Juneau School District in the mid 1970s. The program began as a volunteer effort among parents in Juneau and was further developed through Alaska Sea Grant funding. Grade-appropriate curriculum, guidelines and materials (slides, worksheets, games and other teaching tools) are used in the classroom and the material is enhanced by visiting local beaches, wetlands and facilities associated with marine research or education. The program received national recognition in 1987 by being named one of the Nation’s best science education programs by the National Science Teachers’ Association.
All ages take part in aquarium viewing, with age-appropriate animal identification cards and habitat manipulative activities and a “touch tank” experience (opportunity to hold and view invertebrates). Additional activities, associated with current research at Auke Bay Laboratories and basic oceanography, are provided for the older students. For example, The kindergarten students visit our facility for 45 minutes while the sixth-graders spend 90 minutes.
Auke Bay Laboratories has been involved in Sea Week activities from the very beginning. Annually, they provide interpretive programs for approximately 1,200 students, teachers and parents during the month of May. The interpretative programs are geared towards kindergarten and sixth-grade students.
However, preschool and high school students also take part in the program.