Find It Fund It Florida - Hillsborough Education Foundation

Secret Life of Plankton

School:: Wharton Senior High School
Category:: Science
Teacher/ Administrator:: Christi Atkinson
: 173708
Students Impacted:: 200
Grade Levels Impacted:: 9-12
Date:: September 22, 2020

Investor

Thank you to the following investor for funding this grant.

Verizon Foundation - $883.89

Project Goal

I educate students in Marine Science and teach standard SC.912.L.17.9: “Use a food web to identify and distinguish producers, consumers, and decomposers. Explain the pathway of energy transfer through trophic levels and the reduction of available energy at successive trophic levels.”

Planktons are a diverse collection of organisms that are part of the food web. My students take water samples of pond water, salt water and water from our fish tanks and analyze what organisms they find in the samples. This grant would allow for a better microscope that I could use to project samples onto the board and help students to visualize what they are looking for. A picture is not always the best representation of what plankton looks like especially as they are swimming around in a slide. The laptop would allow for mobility and movement in the classroom as many times labs are conducted in another classroom or location. This equipment would allow me to maximizes my instructional time and helps my students to better prepare for the big idea. Last, but not least, it is fun to the students expressions when they finally see those little plankton alive and swimming.

How Project Benefits Students

I am constantly trying to find new ways to make the lessons more fun and interactive to allow my students the best education I can provide them. I have a projector in front of my room which allows me to show the students slides and also at the same time show them live samples they have collected. Plankton are extremely diverse and I teach my students to identify different plankton that are in their samples using a microscope. This grant provides my class with a new digital microscope with built-in camera with up to 400x magnification that will be connected to a laptop. When identifying small organisms, this is essential to make the students understand what they are looking for and it makes learning a lot more fun. The laptop will also be used for student research, teacher assistants and projecting articles or pictures for my students to maximize their instructional time.

Expected Outcome(s)

The expected outcome is overall better test score in marine science. I hope to encourage my students to seek employment in the field and that my activities teach students how important the ocean is to their life. I hope my students will protect the Earth and assist with cleanups needed to help marine life as their habitat is threatened by oil spills, chemicals and other environmental factors. Identifying marine life in samples will help maintain good water balance for our future generations of plankton.

Detailed Cost Summary

Microscope with camera:
https://store.schoolspecialty.com/OA_HTML/ibeCCtpItmDspRte.jsp?minisite=10206&item=11242195

Items

#	Item Description	Total Cost
1	Frey Scientific Digital Compound Microscope with Built-In Camera	$883.89
	Total:	$883.89

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