Introducing my third grade class

Hello Reefing Community,

My name is Brandon Rutherford and I teach in a third grade classroom at Garden Hill Elementary School in Champaign Illinois. One of my goals is to connect my students to the reef community and give the encouragement they need to learn new skills.

As a class, my students and I built a tank from scratch and installed all of the support systems needed to maintain it. They are really into all of the different pieces of equipment and how it works.

The marine biology, chemistry, and environmental ethics learned by building and maintaining the reef system are integrated into most areas of my curriculum. We use expository writing to document what we are learning. We read books about chemistry, marine biology, and ecology. Students have already taken over most of the detailed tasks necessary to cater to the chemical and physiological needs of the reef ecosystem. They can do all of the water tests, clean the skimmer, mix salt water and do water changes, frag coral and many of the other complex things reefers have to learn to move up to the master level.

Every classroom/student in the school, and several community groups, are allowed to access it. My students and the children who come in to help, take the responsibility of keeping the reef system healthy very seriously. Many live in extreme poverty and some are homeless or in the foster care system. They have never been trusted to oversee a project this magnitude and all have risen to the occasion.

Many stay after school or give up their recess time to care for it. The reef system exposes students to an ecosystem many of them will otherwise never see. It provides a hands-on contextual platform for complex science instruction. It also is a source of wonder for the entire school.

I have documented much of work we have done on the aquarium on my classes website. Please check it out for more information: Reef System - Awesome Squad:*Third Grade Gifted Class at Garden Hills Elementary

I will show this post to my class everyday. Please respond with well wishes or questions.

 

Awesome work, Tank looks great.

Nice job on motivating your students as well.

 

It's wonderful.

Had there been such a tank in my room at school I would never ever have gotten a thing done.

 

thanks everyone

thanks for the nice thoughts guys,

We really appreciate your support, if you can, please post about our class as well.

Does anyone have specific questions my students can answer?

 

Mr. Rutherford,

Hats off to you sir and the enthusiastic students of Garden Hills Elementry!! My daughter is in third grade and we are thinking of starting a reef tank together. You and your class are inspiring and has motivated us to go full steam ahead with this project. The extra effort you are putting in with your students and the whole school is remarkable. I wish you were my daughters third grade teacher.

We loved the videos and pictures of the students. How big is the tank? As a class, do they like fish or invertebrates better? Do any of your students want to have reef aquariums when they get older? Has this tank inspired any of them to become marine biologists? We will continue to follow the class and tank in the future.

Good luck.

Coach and Ella Blue

 

Very nice!! Great to hear such great interaction with the students and allowing them to have hands on experience outside the textbook.

 

Hey Coach,

Thanks for the encouragement, I am very glad that we started this project. It was kind of a leap of faith but it's getting more and more momentum and the kids love it. I teach children who live in poverty and many don't see science or education in general as something valuable. Have a project that requires them to learn science has been a major motivation and even people who aren't interested in reef keeping have acknowledged the power of what we're doing.

To answer your questions: Our display tank is 120 gallons with a homemade 40 gallon sump. Every kid who comes into the classroom asks where Nemo is. At first students are very focused on the fish but the more they learn about marine biology the more they love the coral and inverts. We actually have many more inverts than fish (mostly because they're cheaper) and our three brittle stars and reef cleaner shrimp are now the favorites. All of the students have a strong appreciate of science and many want to be biologist of some sort. I try very hard to communicate the need to learn about many different parts of the natural world before deciding on a career, but if you asked many would say marine biologist. One of the students most into the Tank is named Virginia and she loves to write. If you daughter is interested, have her write a letter to our schools address (on my website) and I promise she'll get a response.

Did you check out the dissection page? My kids are super interested in anatomy now and I'm trying to draw a lot of connections between mammal and fish anatomy.

 

What an awesome class project,it's truly amazing what young children are capable of when given opportunity and motivation.Karma to all of you.

 

LOL Cheryl. There was and I didn't.Well a turtle tank anyways.I will never forget the day Mrs. Sindelar put me in charge of that tank.I still think about her everytime I look at my animals.8)
Awesome good luck to you and your children.

 

awesome!!! i have oceans of respect (see what I did there? ehh ehhhh) for people who strive to bring the young generations closer to animals and nature. one of the many lessons I learnt and value the most from my mother is how she was able to transmit to me her love for animals.

education and respect is the base for a balanced coexistence!!