Students Explore Aquatic Sciences (SEAS)

Classroom Lessons

Overview

SEAS offers free in-class lessons for 6-8th grade classrooms in the Seattle area. Our lessons are designed as project-based learning activities and are taught by research staff and graduate students from the University of Washington. Lessons are aligned to Next Generations Science Standards (NGSS) for middle and high school.

Lesson Requests

Educators can start scheduling a lesson by filling our our Lesson Request form. View our Lesson Catalog for a current list of available lessons.

Program Details

The goal of the Classroom Mini-Lesson Program is to provide students with an opportunity to explore hands-on science activities within their classroom. SEAS provides materials for lessons, and and our lessons are taught free-of-charge by trained SEAS volunteers. Lessons are designed for 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. Lessons are designed as project-based learning activities which provide students with an opportunity to explore topics in aquatic science which are relevant connect to environmental concerns and active research in the Pacific Northwest. Our lessons are aligned to Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for middle and high school, and have been subject to review by current or former science educators. Lessons are 50 minutes long, but can be adjusted to meet teachers’ requests.

We strive to incorporate all six levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy Revised in our learning objectives; however, most often our lessons center around the application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of scientific topics. Broadly, our lessons structures to allow students to use the scientific method to test a hypothesis and making evidence-based predictions based on data. Specific examples of learning objectives in our lessons include differentiating species of fish using DNA barcoding and developing harvest strategies to avoid overfishing.

The standards covered vary based depending on the lesson material, but typical standards are:

  • Constructing an explanation that predicts patterns of interactions among organisms across multiple ecosystems (MS-LS2-2)
  • Analyzing and interpreting data to provide evidence for the effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem (MS-LS2-1)
  • Evaluating competing design solutions for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services (MS-LS2-5)
  • Applying scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment (MS-ESS3-3).

More lessons are currently in development and we will update our catalog accordingly.

 

SEAS seeks to promote science and make it accessible to youth; thus, we are looking for teacher collaborators who are interested in our lessons.