Hello,

My name is Chris Saunders I am a science teacher at Venture Academy located in Marriott-Slaterville or some people might know it better as north Ogden. We are a charter school that uses expeditionary learning. A major portion of our curriculum is integrated into long-term, deep study of topics. We call these long-term studies Learning Expeditions. We use the term “expedition” metaphorically. Lewis and Clark went, not on a trip, but an expedition--an incredible and unforgettable journey in which they met challenges, solved problems, and arrived at a destination that seemed unattainable.  Using the term “expedition” in the phrase, “learning expedition,” adds the sense that this learning experience will not just be a "lesson", or a "unit" to cover.  It will be instead a deep, wide, and engaging learning experience that may take anywhere from several weeks to several months to accomplish. 

         For being a relatively small middle school, Venture’s 6th to 8th offers an impressive array of elective offerings that give students the opportunity to pursue their interests.  They also provide teachers with opportunities to teach courses in which they have a particular interest.  Teachers often make use of local resources (nature, experts, and fieldwork) to enrich the experiences.

         As stated in the previous paragraph we as teachers get to teach courses that interest us as teachers. I have been keeping some sort of aquarium throughout my life both salt and freshwater aquariums and I just taught an elective that I called “Tanked” in which the students got the opportunity to learn about setting up aquariums, this term they got to set up a 80 gallon freshwater planted tank.

         As fun as it was setting up this tank not all the students got to be involved and so for my next term that I teach this I would like to do smaller tanks so that each student would get a chance to be involved. The next time I would be teaching this will actually be in January and I want to focus just on Marine aquariums in particular reef tanks as the students will get a better understanding of a ecosystem in a new light. I would like to get  8 2-3 gallon tanks that I could have the students set up with easy corals and a fish or shrimp. For this process we can bring in experts to teach the students better then I could about lighting, water quality, substrate, and so on. So in conclusion I would like to ask and see if anybody could help in any way be it your time to come and talk to the students and be an expert or if you have a small tank/ fish or coral lying around that you are not using or want to rehome and would be willing to donate it to a worthy cause. I know that this is far away but I thought I would put it out there so if any of you have any ideas for me to go about this that would be amazing.

Thanks,

Chris Saunders