The Aquarium As An

Educational Tool:

 The Saga of the

Soggy Pedagogue

Randy Donowitz and

Doug Robbins

February 13th on

#reefs

Randy Donowitz: 

Randy Donowitz writes the Reef Keeping 101 column for Aquarium Frontiers On-line

magazine. He currently maintains three captive reef systems, ranging from 55 gallons to 125 gallons. His aquarium experience encompasses not only marine environments, but also the maintenance of fresh water systems and the breeding of African Rift Lake cichlids. 

Randy is the Director of Freshman English and the Writing and Tutorial Center at New Yorkís Pratt Institute, where two of his reef systems are on public display and used in one way or another by many of Prattís faculty and students. 

Doug Robbins: 

Doug Robbins has kept fish and small animals in glass tanks for almost his whole lifetime. His father started him in the hobby and he still maintains the 50 gallon Metaframe stainless steel, chromium plated fresh water community display tank he had forty years ago. He also maintains a 30 gallon minireef and a small backyard goldfish pond. He is deeply committed to the ecological movement and marine conservation. 

Doug is a practicing psychologist and is a Professor of Psychology at Pratt Institute in New York, where he is a colleague of Terry Siegel and Randy Donowitz. He currently writes the Media Review column in Aquarium Frontiers On-line magazine. 

Welcome everybody. We'd like to thank

the operators of reefs.org for inviting us to speak with you this evening. We

hope our talk will prove of interest to you and that we can adequately respond

to any questions you may have.  The

title of our talk is The Aquarium As Educational Tool, or more whimsically, The

Saga of the Soggy Pedagogue.   As

professional educators, it is our firm belief that there is no greater good

served by maintaining living creatures in captive systems than the opportunity

to expose people of all ages to the variety of life found in aquatic

environments.  Through this

exposure, many lessons can be learned about the creatures themselves, the

environments in which they live and the fragile balance of the ecosystems that

support them. 

At

a time when our hobby is coming under increased scrutiny from those who question

the value and ethical soundness of our avocation, we are committed to the idea

of bringing the educational benefits of our pursuit to the forefront and to

suggest ways that those in educational capacities can capitalize on such

valuable and flexible resources as small local aquaria. 

We also hope to motivate those of you out there to find ways to lend your

expertise to local educational efforts and perhaps find ways to encourage the

aquarium industry to make resources more readily available to local communities.

We

are well aware that aquariums are sometimes found in the classrooms of public

schools, but what planned, systematic use is made of them educationally? 

How are they integrated into the curriculum? What actual lesson plans are

built around them? How can teachers be made aware of the educational potential

that the classroom aquarium contains?  What

we propose here is that there are myriad ways in which these wonderful aquatic

resources can be used for specific teaching goals at all levels of the

educational spectrum. 

We

also assert that these projects should be undertaken with the greatest

sensitivity to environmental concerns and that all organisms introduced be

captive bred or propagated.  This in

itself is an important part of the educational mission.

Doug

will begin tonight by discussing the varied uses of classroom aquariums in the

science curriculum. 

Science

section

THE

I

have seen many children and adults fascinated by the aquariums I have maintained

in my home and curious about the creatures in them. 

I have found them to be willing, even anxious, to hear about the tank’s

inhabitants and about the techniques and technologies necessary to keep them

alive and happy.  Almost everyone is

attracted to the looks of well-run aquaria, and children especially love them.

This innate curiosity and spontaneous interest can be utilized for both formal

and informal education because there's so much that can be learned from these

little artificial ecosystems.  A

well-planned and run aquarium can be an extraordinarily valuable aid for science

education, broadly defined.  It can

be used to teach the fundamentals of the scientific method as well as more

specific topics in biology, chemistry, ecology, the behavioral sciences and even

technology and physics, and it can teach these from basic to advanced levels. 

Equally important,  it can teach children valuable lessons about responsibility

toward their living charges and the natural environments from which they come. 

We know from our own experience how setting up and maintaining an

aquarium can be a positive prod for new learning and for increased sensitivity

to our living world.

I

have often taught Educational Psychology courses in my years as a teaching

psychologist, and know that one of the most basic necessities in the learning

process is the need to create motivation in the learners. 

The most valuable kinds of motivators are intrinsic – it is not

necessary to provide external rewards because the activities themselves are

interesting and rewarding.  The

classroom aquarium can provide this kind of motivation to learn in a natural and

spontaneous way.   It is

critical to find opportunities for this kind of educational motivation

especially in the sciences, subject’s children often resist or find difficult. 

Clearly, we will need people to have a greater understanding of both

scientific methods and contents if we are to have a citizenry capable of dealing

with the complex social and environmental problems our present already poses and

that our future will probably intensify.  Bodies of water, both fresh and marine, along with their

organisms, are often at the center of these problems. Classroom aquariums can be

an important part of the educational mix that provides the motivation to acquire

the knowledge and sophistication necessary to address these problems. 

In the following sections I have tried to indicate some of the many ways

in which aquaria can be used.  I’m

sure I have just scratched the surface.

Elementary

Level

Of

course there are specific issues to be dealt with when it comes to science

education.  For some of my

assumptions about science education in the early years I am relying on Elementary

School Science and How to Teach It (5^th edition) by Glen Blough

and Julius Schwartz.  These authors

point out that there are two basic approaches in the field. 

One, the process approach, emphasizes the development of

skills such as observation, description, classification, measurement, inference

and prediction.  The other

educational approach emphasizes content of large blocks of

knowledge such as the traditional fields of biology and chemistry as well as

newer integrations like ecology.  These approaches are not mutually exclusive, of course. 

It is clear that both can utilize the classroom aquarium productively. 

Elementary school children can be introduced, informally, to the basic

techniques of the process approach and can start to build a “knowledge-base”

of concepts as suggested by the content approach. 

They can certainly be encouraged to develop the fundamental processes of

observation and description and they can learn to communicate their observations

and start to make generalizations. They can begin to take and record

measurements.  They can make

drawings and be encouraged to read.  Basic

content about nutrients, the nitrogen cycle and photosynthesis can be

introduced.   Students can be

introduced to thermometers and other simple equipment.

Schools

within reasonable distances of public aquariums can make trips to these

important institutions to see their classroom aquariums in larger scale, with

more exotic specimens.

Those

children lucky enough to live near bodies of water can be introduced to the

ecologies and organisms that are nearby.   

They can use some of the things they’ve learned to explore their local

environments and perhaps to see the effects of environmental degradation or

pollution, and hopefully to observe some of the attempts to improve conditions. 

Jr.

High School and High School

By

the Junior High and High School years, departmental education takes place and

the science education tank will probably be in the Biology classroom. 

From this point, science education will be more formal. 

Aquaria with plants and animals can be used to demonstrate and discuss

all of the fundamental process of energy utilization, growth, reproduction,

adaptation, photosynthesis  - there

is almost no limit to the material that can be presented by an imaginative

teacher.  Biochemical processes can

also be explored through studies of water chemistry and its measurement, as well

the interaction between water chemistry and metabolic processes.  

Biophysical processes can also be explored through studies such as the

relationship between parameters of light and the process of photosynthesis.

It

is also possible to introduce behavioral studies – learning, perception,

territoriality, parental behavior, aggression, social behavior and communication

– all of these can be illustrated in “real life” situations.

Some

students will be equally or even more interested in the technology that

maintains aquaria.  They can do electrical work, learn about lighting fixtures

and sources of illumination, understand pumps, and find out about basic

plumbing.  

Other

students and teachers may choose to focus on ecology and the environmental

sciences.  They can take their probes and test kits out into the field

and apply their knowledge to real world situations, monitoring the status of

local environments and participating in community education programs.

It

is worth mentioning here that aquaria possess values beyond those of narrowly

defined science education.  They can

motivate students in many unpredictable ways and deserve a place beyond the

classroom, in the general use and well-trafficked spaces of the school as well.

Higher

Education

The

aquarium is certainly at home on the college and university level as well.  

Randy’s comments about aquaria in an art and design college, which

follow, will attest to that.  Some

comments about science education on this level are appropriate here too. 

Of course, every topic listed above can be treated at greater depth in

higher education, and the use of aquaria may serve here as well to reduce

students’ fear of their science requirements and increase their motivation. 

On this level, however, the potential for independent research of value

to the scientific community becomes possible.                

Bruce

Carlson, in his article “What Reef Aquaria Tell Us About Nature,” published

in Marine Fish and Reef USA 2000, states “aquariums present real

opportunities to culture corals for a variety of bioassay, medicinal and

conservation purposes.  And, as

model reef communities (‘microcosms’), these systems allow us to test

hypotheses concerning the effects of rapidly changing environmental

conditions.”  Clearly, the

potential embodied in aquaria specifically devoted to research is not limited to

corals, but encompasses all of the organisms, freshwater and marine, plant and

animal, vertebrate and invertebrate that can be maintained in this fashion.     

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Randy

will now spend some time talking about educational uses that go beyond the

science classroom. 

As

some of you may know, I run the Writing and Tutorial Center at Pratt Institute

in NYC.  I have the pleasure of

maintaining two of my reef systems in this very public space. 

Over the past few years I have had the great fortune to find ways to

combine my personal and professional interests. 

Quite naturally the reefs at Pratt have become an attraction for

students, faculty, staff and members of the community. 

Though my original intent when deciding to set up these systems on campus

(I must credit Doug and Terry Siegel for helping hatch the original plans) was

aesthetic, it became readily apparent that there were teaching opportunities at

almost every turn. 

Pratt

is primarily a school for artists, designers ,and architects. 

The affinity between these visually oriented students and the visual

stimulation that reef aquaria provide was immediate and powerful. 

Without any outreach on my part, students began to find their way into

the Writing Center with cameras, pads and pencils, and camcorders. 

Images of the aquariums began to show up in projects from fine artists,

in fabric patterns from Fashion students, and video and computer art. 

Industrial designers were drawn to the elegance or clumsiness of the

equipment and architecture students began to investigate parallels between the

"architecture " of  aquatic

systems and the closed systems of buildings.

It

didn't take me long to realize that these types of inquiries could be formalized

and directed.  I began to discuss

these possibilities with some of my colleagues and found several that were

enthusiastic.  To date, one section

of a freshman drawing class has had formal assignments 

using the aquariums in the writing center. 

The ecology class focused its end of semester project on coral reef

ecology, and I am in serious dialogue with an industrial design professor to

involve his students in the design of a variety of aquarium related products.

The

Writing Center at Pratt serves a largely international student population and my

personal project is to design a series of writing and speaking exercises to help

these students develop their language skills in ways that are relevant to their

studies at the college.  Many of our

students hail from countries with tropical seas.  Students from Thailand, Taiwan, and Israel amongst others

have a  great appreciation of the

reef environment.  What better

resource could I have at my disposal for helping them learn English?  The visual complexity of a thriving reef system is perfect

for lessons involving the language of description, spatial relationships, and

motion.  Simply encouraging students

to ask questions about the fish and corals helps students find a comfort level

with the language and expand their vocabulary.

On

weekends the college hosts several programs for local children who never fail to

clamor around the glass window that affords a view of one of the reefs from the

hallway.  When I am around, I always

invite them in and answer questions.  They

are always thrilled. 

This

is all very exciting to us as 'on the ground " educators. 

but what does it mean for those of you who are not teachers? 

How does this help advance our hobby?   

Our

hope is that this talk will inspire some of you out there to pursue a more

active involvement in the educational potential of the hobby you love. 

For those of you who are educators, we urge that you dialogue with your

colleagues and find a way to incorporate an aquarium into the learning

environment of your school.  We

recommend that this is best accomplished by locating the aquarium in an area of

common use so that the opportunities for learning are increased. 

The art faculty for example, is far more likely to make use of an

aquarium if it is in a centrally located, visible area than if it resides in the

chemistry lab.

In

addition to the Pratt example presented here, we know of at least two other

notable examples of reef aquariums used in the broad-based, interdisciplinary

manner advocated here.  One is a

project of Sanjay Joshi’s at Penn State University ....are you out there

Sanjay?... where he, in collaboration with faculty members from several

departments on campus, and funding from the student association is setting up a

large reef system in the student union.  Another

project that some of you may be aware of is the reef tank that was established

in the makeshift library of Columbine high school in Colorado. 

This project was the brainchild of the school librarian who was searching

for ways to entice a terrified student body back into the library after the

tragic events that took place last year and a teacher who is an aquarium

hobbyist.  I believe the entire

system was funded by donations from sympathetic hobbyists and local and national

retailers.

For

those of you not involved directly in the education world, we would suggest that

many of you have children in your lives.  What

better way to become involved in their education outside of the home than to

assist their school or community center with the set up and maintenance of an

aquarium?

Many

of you also belong to aquarium clubs or societies.  We can think of no better use of club time or resources than

providing assistance to educational institutions.  You folks love to talk about this stuff. 

Why not do it in a more formal public way?

I

am sure the issue of who will pay for all this has crossed your minds. 

This is a legitimate problem, but one which has several possible

solutions.  Certainly, in the case

of many academic institutions there is enough funding to go around. 

Usually it is just a matter of presenting your project in the proper way. 

In public schools, or other situations, this is unfortunately not often

the case. 

It

has been our experience here at Pratt that local vendors and hobbyists are quite

eager to contribute equipment and supplies.  One of the reef systems at the Writing Center was set up with

used equipment that was donated to us, and the Stark brothers from ESV company

have been very generous in donating  B-Ionic

by the bucket full as well as carbon and other supplements. 

All of the organisms are fragments from local hobbyists, and the fish are

from several local aquarium shops.  It

did not require a lot of arm-twisting to pull this together. 

Have you ever wondered what to do with that old equipment graveyard I

know you all have cluttering your basements? 

Think of how many systems could be put together from the combined

resources of your local club?  What

better use of those cuttings, fragments and fry?

If

the large manufacturers in our industry were smart, they would go out of their

way to give these kinds of resources away. 

What better way for them to ensure a next generation of aquarium keepers? 

How we can encourage them to do so is a question we would like to put to

you.

At

a time when our hobby needs to present itself in the best possible light, what

better way to position ourselves than as agents of educational exchange.

We

would like to thank you again for spending this time with us. 

We hope in the question and answer period that follows to learn of

projects that many of you have undertaken or are aware of. 

We’re sure there are many out there. We would also like to encourage

you to expand, adapt and explore other ways to get the most out of the great

potential our mutual interest offers.   

Q

& A

Take it away w/ the questions BlackBeard

What kinds of questions do students ask about the tanks?

All kinds- how long things live. How hard are they to take care of. how much does it cost

Lots of questions about what corals really are. Where they come from.

If we try to contact local schools, what books or papers should we reference?

A very good question, but one we are still working to pull together, any suggestions out there?

How do we deal with the problem with pronunciation of the

Latin names I like to discuss my reef but seem to shy away because of this fact?

In education you have to meet the students where they are. Common names may have to do, as more formal scientific names are introduced. The Latin is an excellent resource for helping non-native speakers gain insight into how

English is constructed. But it takes time. 

What are some of the tank sizes of these projects?

Minimally, 20 gallon long with two fluorescent tubes, can be very useful. the larger the better

though.

Do you keep hard to keep/difficult animals in any of the Pratt tanks?

It depends what you mean by difficult? We keep the full range of SPS, LPS, soft

corals, clams etc. Lots of fish too. But I wouldn't say this should be the norm for starters 

At what grade level would be a good level to teach about propagation?

It is very hard to predict, but upper elementary school level seems like a good starting point. 

Have you had any problems with contamination or sabotage?

Very good question. The answer is that there is one possible situation, but I'm not sure. In a college environment this is less likely. Could be a real problem in other situations

though.

Here's a question. Do the kids secretly pull stuff out of the tank and try to sell it to the local

LFS?

Not in my experience. A very novel idea though. It would be hard to walk away with a dripping arm and no one notice. At least in our situation here 

Are there liability issues?

There very well may be? That is why you need to go through the proper channels. But this should present no larger problem than other pieces of

equipment.

Is there anything the students have taught u while learning about the tanks? 

What have the students taught YOU, the educators about reef tanks, how to keep them, etc.?

They made us see the great educational potential in these tanks. It also showed how little most people know about marine environments and organisms  

 How do you safe guard the tanks for younger students?

First they must be supervised when around the tanks. The electrical and plumbing must be well placed and safely installed. A good lid helps too. 

OK gentlemen, that wraps up the "formal" part of the Q and A session.

I would like to be the first to thank tonight's speakers.

© 1999 www.reefs.org