Marine Education Center
There's a Marine Biologist in my Classroom
Page Content
We'll bring the field trip to you!
Our team of marine educators will pack up their artifacts, equipment, and specimens to deliver a hands-on learning experience so every student feels like a marine biologist. Let us bring the world of dolphins and sharks to your classroom.
Sessions are 45 minutes each, with a minimum of 30 students per session.
To register or for more information, contact us at 228.818.8095 or marine.educationFREEMississippi.
There's a Marine Biologist in My Classroom Flyer
Sharks - Create your own Shark Week!
Our professional marine educators have carefully designed this session to provide
students with a rich educational experience and a deeper understanding of the role
of apex predators in food webs and how sharks use their "sharky" senses to locate
and ambush prey. Students will learn how different types of sharks have adaptations,
providing advantages for hunting specific prey types in different marine environments.
Our staff designed two creative, fun and engaging "out of their seat" experiential
activities to incorporate the cognitive, emotional and physical aspects of learning
about sharks as apex predators. FUN, FUN, FUN!
This is a marine biology class on steroids. The Marine Education Center staff delivers
two to three foot long preserved sharks to the classroom, along with all the supplies
required to have your choice of a dissection demonstration or a hands-on dissection
experience for groups of four to five students per specimen. Maximum 30 students to
classroom. Students will work with spiny dogfish to learn about the external and internal
anatomy, along with what makes the spiny dogfish different from other shark species.
Get in there...and get your gloves dirty!
Get in there...and get your gloves dirty!
Sharks get a bad wrap, but they are important members of the marine food web. These
creatures are under pressure because people see them as a threat; humans in turn seek
to diminish their populations, as well as use them in unethical means such as for
exotic trade, selling just the fin for shark fin soup. This all adds up to species
vulnerability. Our marine educators engage participants in learning about different
types of sharks and the interdependent relationships between their species and other
marine animals in the watery world. The education specialists have created a curriculum
that includes engaging the class in fun exercises to teach and reinforce the principals
of sustainability and the threat of extinction for sharks. Long live the sharks!
Very little is known about the life of a whale shark in the world's oceans. Our staff,
working closely with our marine scientists, take the current research and tagging
data from our university whale shark studies and bring them to your classroom. Students
will learn about the different technologies utilized for tagging these sharks and
recording how whale sharks move from one place in the ocean to another. Students will
graph research information from specific whale shark individuals and form their own
hypotheses about whale shark behavior.
You be the scientist!
You be the scientist!
Dolphins
There are forty-four species of both oceanic and freshwater dolphins around the globe!
Students will dive into a world of fun while learning all about these cetaceans and
their exceptional uniqueness to their individual part of the world, as well as which
species lives in our own backyard. The Atlantic Bottlenose dolphin is the most common
dolphin species in the Northern Gulf of Mexico. Our educators will not only lecture
on multiple species types, but also on photo identification data collection particularly
with the bottlenose!
Learn how dolphins are exclusively modified to fit their various aquatic environments.
Students will have the opportunity to handle and examine a number of authentic dolphin
artifacts to get up close and personal with what makes a dolphin a dolphin. Both internal
and external anatomy will be discussed, as well as all of their amazing adaptations!
Dolphins can hear a frequency range ten times broader than a human’s. Hold a dolphin
skull and study where the melon organ used to emit sound waves used for echolocation.
As an apex predator, this isn’t the dolphin’s only mind-blowing adaptation! Marine
educators will supply all materials needed to show students first hand just how dolphins
are capable of echolocation, and other extraordinary sensory acts.
Dolphins are highly intelligent and curious creatures. This lesson will help students
plunge even deeper into the actions and cognitive capacity of these species. Explore
social group types, daily dolphin behaviors, and communication skills shared across
all cetacean species. Receive hands-on experience with scientific equipment used to
record dolphin conduct, while participating in a behavior-matching activity. Come
join our pod!