Academia is very fortunate to have been selected to participate in a weekly Marine Sciences Club, facilitated by the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town in partnership with the Overberg WCED Head of Curriculum Coordination and Advice, Ms Jenny Bridgeman, and the Rupert Foundation. The club is run by Russell Stevens, the head of education at the aquarium, but other staff members at the aquarium, as well as representatives from the University Of The Western Cape, University of Stellenbosch and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology are regularly used. The project is being run at Academia with learners from the other participant, Hawston High, being bussed to Academia to participate.
The Two Oceans Aquarium’ Environmental Education Centre offers programmes for school groups visiting the Aquarium and over 59 000 school students are reached this way every year. Our long term aim is to offer Marine Sciences as a subject at coastal schools and this project forms part of that aim.
Twenty-two of Academia’s learners in Grade 9 and 10 have been selected to participate in the project which purpose is to increase an interest in Marine Sciences among the students and ultimately encourage students to improve their report scores. Fun activities and experiments are offered to the students and each is challenged to do their best at improving their scores for their end of year report. The curricula content of the course includes teaching about density, buoyancy, measurement and properties of air. The key objective of this Marine Sciences programme is to increase their understanding of managing our ocean resources as well as better equipping students to prepare themselves to study further in fields of Marine Sciences.
