Mathematics of Aquatic Ecosystems - A Curriculum: Integration of Math Instruction Using a Sequence of 16 Hands-On Aquatic Ecosystem Projects

The materials and activities described in this document are presented for use as an integrated yearlong math/science curriculum. Activities that cultivate student abilities to construct, maintain, analyze, and design, various components of aquatic ecosystems are the vehicles by which integration of math and science is accomplished. All curricular activities revolve around sixteen major projects. This curriculum is designed to be flexible with the hope that each individual teacher, at the high school or advanced middle school level, can implement this sequence of sixteen projects in a way that does not exceed his or her own level of comfort and skill (with construction, math inquiry and exploration, aquatic ecosystems, or posing and solving genuine math problems). Accordingly, individual teachers may modify/adapt each of the curriculum´s sixteen major projects so as to challenge and reward each unique group of students most appropriately. Materials in the bibliography provide resources teachers may use to integrate drama, literature, art, history, geography, music, and multicultural activities into the sixteen major student projects in this curriculum. The curriculum is written so as to address the expectations faced by many teachers today to use cooperative and inquiry-based learning, hands-on activities, multiple evaluation domains, differentiation, co-teaching, and to satisfy alignment with state goals. Furthermore, it is written in response to expectations many teachers of today face to be interdisciplinary in their presentation of material and to present material in such a way that it reinforces positive multi-cultural sensibilities.