Wake Shark & Ocean Education: Teacher’s Kit

Part One

Wake has a lot of exciting initiatives going on, so for the month of March, we will be bringing you a series of stories about what they are up to.

Educating each other about sustainable and humanely caught seafood is an important step in creating major change in the fishing industry, but how many of you find that you don’t have the confidence to take this important step?  Or, perhaps you’re teaching today’s youth about the issue, but find that there aren’t a lot of resources out there?  While this is a worldwide issue, it’s also a major local issue because of the amount of seafood caught and consumed in Vancouver.

Wake Shark & Ocean Education has made it much easier for everyone to educate each other about Ocean issues. Wake has launched a Teacher’s Kit that contains fun lessons focused on Life Science and the Sustainability of Ecosystems. Although this kit is catered for a Grade 10 Science class, it can be tailored for any grade or class. You can even print it out for a rainy night at home with the family!

This kit has eight parts:

• Part 1 – Class Activities
• Part 2 – Presentation
• Part 3 – Group Presentation
• Part 4 – Homework Assignments
• Part 5 – Quizzes
• Part 6 – Vocabulary
• Part 7 – Resources
• Part 8 – Posters

As you can see, this kit has many amazing and reliable resources that can be reformatted for any class! What makes this even more exciting is that all this is available to download for free.

Here’s a big incentive to take a look at the Teacher’s Kit today: the Wake Project quotes that up to 100,000,000 sharks are inhumanely killed every year. Why? Because of unsustainable fishing practices and a growing demand for seafood in general.  As a result, the existence of sharks is dwindling.

To download the kit, click here or take a quick glance.  These kits have been downloaded worldwide and, if teachers email Wake with feedback, they will be entered in a monthly giveaway for an oceans related DVD. An exciting opportunity for learning in different ways!

You can learn more about the Wake Project by going to their website and finding them on Facebook – a “Like” never hurts either! If you want to learn more about this issue, you can contact founder Linsday O’Donnell at lindsay@wakeproject.net.

Leave a comment to share what you know about seafood sustainability or share tips we all can use to take an active stand to protect the underwater world.

By Kathryn Lim