Play Coalition receives national media attention
January 9, 2011The Five Reasons Parents Should be Demanding a Greener Education for Their Children
January 15, 2011Article from Harvard Education Letter.
By LUCY HOOD
In the marine science classes he teaches at La Jolla High School in southern California, David James spends a lot of time talking to his students about plankton’”phytoplankton, zooplankton, all kinds of plankton’”because plankton is essential to the survival of humankind.
Plankton is at the bottom of the food chain. It’s what little fish eat before they’re eaten by bigger fish. Commonly known forms of plankton are algae and jelly¬fish. Not so commonly known, however, is that the photosynthesis of phytoplankton’”the plant version of plankton’”is responsible for roughly half the earth’s oxygen.
James’s students spend a lot of time either outside or in a lab. They’ve visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and the Hopkins Marine Station on California’s Monterey Peninsula, and they’ve helped with a global initiative known as the Census of Marine Life. One of the goals is to get them out there and making observations, he says…..
