MARINE SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS FOR YOUTH
KEA will develop environmental educational programs for students, with the hope that students will mature into informed citizens, community leaders, and stewards of the environment. Experiential (outdoor) learning is a highly effective tool that complements formal classroom education--improving confidence, leadership, and strong social skills among youth. Accordingly, KEA will develop hands-on learning programs that take advantage of the natural coastal/marine habitats of East Africa to enhance the students’ educational experience. As a result, KEA’s programs will impart knowledge of environmental challenges and potential solutions unique to the region.
Integrating multidisciplinary principles and theories, KEA’s curriculum combines traditional classroom education with experiential learning. This integrated approach to education provides students a better understanding of their connection with and responsibilities toward the environment--and, more specifically, toward East Africa’s distinctive coastal/marine environments.
KEA’s “Tides Talk!” Program uses a combination of teaching methods to build basic skills, higher-order thinking skills, and life-skills. This original program focuses on East Africa’s coastal resources, highlighting the environmental issues that affect the critical habitats and the region at large. The program will be comprised of the five parts as outlined below. Although each part can be accomplished separately, most school groups will be encouraged to combine at least two parts into a full day of education. It is the combination of in-class learning and experiential outdoor learning that has the most effective overall impact on the participants.
Integrating multidisciplinary principles and theories, KEA’s curriculum combines traditional classroom education with experiential learning. This integrated approach to education provides students a better understanding of their connection with and responsibilities toward the environment--and, more specifically, toward East Africa’s distinctive coastal/marine environments.
KEA’s “Tides Talk!” Program uses a combination of teaching methods to build basic skills, higher-order thinking skills, and life-skills. This original program focuses on East Africa’s coastal resources, highlighting the environmental issues that affect the critical habitats and the region at large. The program will be comprised of the five parts as outlined below. Although each part can be accomplished separately, most school groups will be encouraged to combine at least two parts into a full day of education. It is the combination of in-class learning and experiential outdoor learning that has the most effective overall impact on the participants.
In-Class Learning Combined with Experiential Learning
In-class Learning
Kaskazi Shoreside Learning Center
The Kaskazi Shoreside Learning Center will serve as a classroom and wet lab for providing lessons and follow-up instruction after field trips or other outdoor learning. The Center will accommodate a variety of learning styles, featuring a wide-screen projector for showing educational visual media, space for presenting lectures, and a laboratory for observing and analyzing specimens and samples.
Shoreside Marine Science Program
The shoreside program will offer students a chance to experience real world marine science. Students will have the opportunity to explore rocky shores and intertidal habitats. They will discover how rocky shore creatures move, eat, and protect themselves. With the use of equipment like a beach seine and plankton net, students will catch a variety of organisms for close study.
The curriculum will be taught in a stimulating, intimate outdoor learning environment to provide a truly memorable experience. The instructional program will be tailored to meet the needs of specific groups and age levels. Lessons offered will cover basic marine biology, physics, and chemistry principles, along with marine ecology lessons using a watershed approach. This program is intended to enhance classroom learning by using outdoor instruction to improve the education of students.
The Kaskazi Shoreside Learning Center will serve as a classroom and wet lab for providing lessons and follow-up instruction after field trips or other outdoor learning. The Center will accommodate a variety of learning styles, featuring a wide-screen projector for showing educational visual media, space for presenting lectures, and a laboratory for observing and analyzing specimens and samples.
Shoreside Marine Science Program
The shoreside program will offer students a chance to experience real world marine science. Students will have the opportunity to explore rocky shores and intertidal habitats. They will discover how rocky shore creatures move, eat, and protect themselves. With the use of equipment like a beach seine and plankton net, students will catch a variety of organisms for close study.
The curriculum will be taught in a stimulating, intimate outdoor learning environment to provide a truly memorable experience. The instructional program will be tailored to meet the needs of specific groups and age levels. Lessons offered will cover basic marine biology, physics, and chemistry principles, along with marine ecology lessons using a watershed approach. This program is intended to enhance classroom learning by using outdoor instruction to improve the education of students.
Experiential/Outdoor Learning--Bringing Students to the Environment
Floating Classroom, Mombasa Kenya.
Floating Classroom
KEA will offer marine science education programs on board a 40-foot boat (a floating classroom). The floating classroom will create a fun, educational, interactive experience that students will remember for a lifetime! Once on board, students will embark on a voyage of discovery into the ocean world. They will cast out and haul up a plankton net for up-close examination of the abundance of marine life and plankton. And, they will collect specimens for observation and discussion at the Shoreside Learning Center.
Students will learn the major types of marine environments and the different communities of organisms that are characteristic to particular environments. In addition, they will learn about related important subjects, such as currents and tides (meteorology, climate change issues), coastal maritime history, marine transportation (navigation), and safety. Essentially, KEA’s hands-on approach will provide a brief, yet comprehensive, look into the marine world--and motivate students to strive to preserve the marine environment.
Inland Trek, “Classroom on Wheels”...
Bringing the Environment into the Classroom
Inland Trek will be a program that exposes students to the wonders of ocean science without leaving their own classrooms. It will be a series of mobile outreach programs that cater to inland schools and communities that otherwise have no direct access to the coastal environment (i.e., a Mobile Aquarium). Students will participate in discussions that cover basic ecological concepts such as relationships between organisms and their environments, food chains, and the special adaptations that make organisms suited for their particular environment. Throughout these sessions, KEA instructors will show environmentally themed films and discuss environmental issues of importance to the community.
KEA will offer marine science education programs on board a 40-foot boat (a floating classroom). The floating classroom will create a fun, educational, interactive experience that students will remember for a lifetime! Once on board, students will embark on a voyage of discovery into the ocean world. They will cast out and haul up a plankton net for up-close examination of the abundance of marine life and plankton. And, they will collect specimens for observation and discussion at the Shoreside Learning Center.
Students will learn the major types of marine environments and the different communities of organisms that are characteristic to particular environments. In addition, they will learn about related important subjects, such as currents and tides (meteorology, climate change issues), coastal maritime history, marine transportation (navigation), and safety. Essentially, KEA’s hands-on approach will provide a brief, yet comprehensive, look into the marine world--and motivate students to strive to preserve the marine environment.
Inland Trek, “Classroom on Wheels”...
Bringing the Environment into the Classroom
Inland Trek will be a program that exposes students to the wonders of ocean science without leaving their own classrooms. It will be a series of mobile outreach programs that cater to inland schools and communities that otherwise have no direct access to the coastal environment (i.e., a Mobile Aquarium). Students will participate in discussions that cover basic ecological concepts such as relationships between organisms and their environments, food chains, and the special adaptations that make organisms suited for their particular environment. Throughout these sessions, KEA instructors will show environmentally themed films and discuss environmental issues of importance to the community.
African Sea Star
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Star Fish in Hand
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Field Trips
Mangrove Boardwalk, Gazi, Kenya
KEA will offer field trips to a mangrove marshland where students will be introduced to this vital ecosystem. During the visit, students will receive background information on the types of mangroves found in East Africa, their ecology, and the many functions that they perform (providing a habitat for many terrestrial and marine species, protecting the shoreline from erosion, etc).
KEA will utilize boardwalks that weave through the mangrove swamps, allowing students access deep into the marshland for close observation. Such access will let them interact directly with life in the marsh and observe the inner workings of the mangrove ecosystem.
KEA instructors will describe the current plight of the mangroves--how and why they are being degraded and lost as well as the consequences of their destruction. The instructors will address mangrove conservation issues that are relevant to East Africa and encourage students to participate in conservation projects in their own communities.
KEA will utilize boardwalks that weave through the mangrove swamps, allowing students access deep into the marshland for close observation. Such access will let them interact directly with life in the marsh and observe the inner workings of the mangrove ecosystem.
KEA instructors will describe the current plight of the mangroves--how and why they are being degraded and lost as well as the consequences of their destruction. The instructors will address mangrove conservation issues that are relevant to East Africa and encourage students to participate in conservation projects in their own communities.
Mangrove Restoration Site
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Mangrove Restoration Site
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Learning through Community Service
Future stewards of the environment
As a requisite for admission into KEA's programs, students will be required to a complete a community service project. The project may be completed before or after attending our program. At times, KEA may incorporate a community service project as part of the program itself. This is designed to bring learning full circle and set them on their way to a life as advocates for East Africa’s environment.
Students will design and carry out environmental projects benefiting the community. These activities will be conducted under KEA advisement so as to provide encouragement and help. Community service projects will vary in difficulty, but staff will guide students toward projects that are within their abilities. Such projects may include tree planting, recycling, beach or creek clean up, or pollution awareness campaigns. Projects will give students valuable experience in researching, developing, and implementing solutions to environmental problems in their communities. In this way, KEA will facilitate an educationally sound activity for the students while meeting the needs of the local community.
KEA hopes to inculcate a culture of volunteerism in the local community, especially among the youth. Volunteering is a great way for young people to learn the value of community service, and it provides them with training opportunities to develop knowledge and skills that will help them throughout their lives. Meanwhile, it is an expansion of community involvement, which is important in our changing world.
By inspiring youth to get involved as volunteers, and by educating the communities themselves about environmental issues affecting them, KEA will give the people the tools they need to participate in political discourse and influence policies that shape their lives and their future. KEA, then, will empower entire communities to be proactive, vocal, concerned, and assertive in the management of their environmental resources.
Students will design and carry out environmental projects benefiting the community. These activities will be conducted under KEA advisement so as to provide encouragement and help. Community service projects will vary in difficulty, but staff will guide students toward projects that are within their abilities. Such projects may include tree planting, recycling, beach or creek clean up, or pollution awareness campaigns. Projects will give students valuable experience in researching, developing, and implementing solutions to environmental problems in their communities. In this way, KEA will facilitate an educationally sound activity for the students while meeting the needs of the local community.
KEA hopes to inculcate a culture of volunteerism in the local community, especially among the youth. Volunteering is a great way for young people to learn the value of community service, and it provides them with training opportunities to develop knowledge and skills that will help them throughout their lives. Meanwhile, it is an expansion of community involvement, which is important in our changing world.
By inspiring youth to get involved as volunteers, and by educating the communities themselves about environmental issues affecting them, KEA will give the people the tools they need to participate in political discourse and influence policies that shape their lives and their future. KEA, then, will empower entire communities to be proactive, vocal, concerned, and assertive in the management of their environmental resources.
Volunteers Planting Mangrove, Ngomeni, Kenya
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Community group participating in mangrove Restoration, Gazi, Kenya
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