High School teams will complete five tasks for the competition.
1. Community Service: The students on your team should lead a larger group of your peers and/or members of the community in a public service activity involving the oceans or anything that affects the oceans (like storm-water runoff). You should be as creative as possible in this activity! You should also work to link it to some of the educational activities in your science classes at the school. If your project is an ongoing Community Service, describe how your team expanded and added new components to the project. In your portfolio, submit a description of your Community Service project.
- Description of the activity
- Location(s)
- Date(s)
- Number of total participants
- How does the activity fit into your classroom or school curriculum?
- What are some of the benefits to the community (expected as well as unexpected)?
2. New Lesson Plan for the Oceans: Work as a team (students plus teacher) to create and teach at least one new, ocean-related, lesson plan that fits into the science curriculum at your school, or for a lower grade classroom. This lesson plan should ideally use the ocean to illustrate or inspire students in some area of science and should be related to your public service project. The idea for the lesson plan can come from existing COSEE-West curricula (www.usc.edu/org/cosee-west), other educational sources or be invented by your team (perhaps the best). In your portfolio, submit a description of the Lesson Plan, any new parts that you have created, and how it could be further improved (See Guidelines). You should describe how your lesson plan fits into your class science curriculum, the state science standards it meets, as well as, the number of students taught and how they responded to the lesson plan.
3. Write A Proposal for an Ocean Science Research Project: The project can be on any ocean science question or topic that interests you. The proposal should describe the issue or question that you are addressing, what you hope to learn, and how you would go about completing it, including the methods and equipment that you would use. Proposals should be 3-5 pages in length. In your portfolio, submit a description of your proposal. (See the Guidelines for writing a research proposal.) *Note: You do NOT actually have to do the project, just propose it!
4. Creative Presentations of the Project: Your team should create a visually interesting presentation that documents your project. Judges will view the presentation and portfolio to select winners of the different prizes. Acceptable presentation items include photos, videos, DVDs, CDs, websites, and/or physical mock-ups. Posters and other physical models should not exceed 30 X 48 inches. Multi-medial visuals must not exceed 10 minutes. Each team member, including teacher, must write a one-paragraph reflection on his or her experience in the QuikSCience Challenge. A Project Summary/ Portfolio recording the details of your community service project, lesson plan, research proposal, and reflections must accompany the presentation (See Checklist). Keep in mind: the judges must be able to view your team’s entire creative presentation within a 10 minute time period!
5. Deliver Presentation of the Project: The project materials must be received by mail (not postmarked) or delivered to the University of Southern California Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies by 5 pm on Friday, February 13, 2009.
First Prize: A week-long trip to the USC Wrigley Marine Science Center on Catalina Island for science, education, exploration and fun! Your winning team will explore parts of the island very few people will ever get to experience. Snorkeling, kayaking, hiking, and lab explorations are among the many cool learning opportunities waiting for you! In addition, you will get to meet the students of Avalon and learn what it is like to live on an island! Trip is tentatively scheduled for April 24 to May 1, 2009.
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