HIGH SCHOOL AQUACULTURE EDUCATION
Many high schools have begun to use aquaculture as a learning tool, using a fish tank as a laboratory for chemistry, biology, physics and math. But MIT Sea Grant is taking aquaculture in the classroom one step further by including the hatchery process. Toward that end, aquaculture specialist Brandy Moran and marine advisory leader Cliff Goudey have developed a high school curriculum using MIT Sea Grant's Marine Finfish Hatchery as a model.
Titled "Urban Aquaculture: Utilizing a Marine Finfish Recirculating Hatchery System in the Classroom," the curriculum contains four modules. Together, they include information about the construction of a classroom finfish hatchery, the developmental process of marine finfish, the care and feeding of marine finfish eggs and larval fish, and the monitoring of water quality in a recirculating system. "The early life stages are the most interesting from an educational standpoint. It just takes some extra attention," Mr. Goudey said.
The curriculum is in its final stages of development and should be available by January 1, 2000. MIT Sea Grant will offer a workshop for teachers interested in implementing this curriculum. For more information, contact Brandy Moran at (617) 242-2055 or firstname.lastname@example.org.
Andrea Cohen, MIT Sea Grant College Program
CO2 EMISSIONS TRADING: SIMPLIFYING THE ANALYSIS
One of the hottest topics in recent climate-change negotiations has been emissions trading. Under the Kyoto Protocol, countries that face high costs to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are allowed to pay countries with lower-cost opportunities to make the reductions for them.
An MIT team has developed an easy-to-interpret method of showing who would trade and how specific nations would be affected. Using output from standard models that simulate economic growth, energy use, and carbon emissions, the researchers show the cost to a given region of achieving cuts in CO2 emissions.
Analyses show that, almost regardless of circumstances, all regions will benefit from trading. The savings are enormous when the lowest-cost reducers -- the developing nations -- participate. But costs drop considerably even when trading is limited to the major regions of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In every case, nearly all nations benefit to some extent, and nations facing the highest costs benefit most.
The work was led by Dr. A. Denny Ellerman, who is affiliated with the Energy Laboratory, the Sloan School, the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, and the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. This research was supported by a group of corporations in the United States, Europe and Japan; the Electric Power Research Institute; and agencies of the Norwegian and US governments.
Nancy Stauffer, Energy Laboratory
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on December 8, 1999.