|
 The Race Rocks Taxonomy:
This resource originally was constructed with the contributions of students in environmental systems and biology.The objective was to present the images and videos of the organisms of Race Rocks in their habitats along with the organization of a taxonomic outline.This provides a model of a useful activity where students can accomplish a number of objectives while building the references for a specific ecosystem. This taxonomy also presents a template to encourage other schools to use a similar approach for recognition and conservation of biodiversity in their own local ecosystems.
 Coastal Ecosystems of Southern Vancouver Island.
The contiguous Ecosystems in the District of Metchosin are highlighted along with the anthropogenic effects on habitat.
 Adopt an Ecosystem Project:
Environmental Education involving science students at undergraduate levels in direct action is the goal of our program at Pearson College. We have found that the production by students of internet materials on environmental issues is a vehicle for doing this effectively. This is a tool, which provides incentive for environmental understanding and encouragement of an "adopting an ecosystem" attitude that can have important consequences in education. The emphasis is on "action" and seeking methods to enable collaboration with others to help solve environmental problems. Students at Lester B. Pearson College have been learning about environmental issues by producing materials for the internet, a "Digital Legacy". In this way, their education has the added advantage of serving as a resource for others in the educational system in British Columbia and around the world. It also allows them to participate in facilitating collaborative efforts in environmental research.
Other Educational References Available on racerocks.com:
Race Rocks as a Resource for a Statistics exercise.
The purpose of this file is to enable a student to transfer Environmental Data being recorded at Race Rocks from an EXCEL spread sheet presented on the internet to their own computer in order to be able to graph trends and analyze relationships. Long-term databases are very important for monitoring change in ecosystems. Patterns of cyclic activity and even events such as Climate Change can be detected from the Race Rocks Data.
http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/education/curricula/ibbiology/labairseatemp.htm
The Ecological Niche and The Transect File:
These two files demonstrate useful ecological quantification techniques and allow an interactive format for the students to study this aspect of ecology. They further provide a model for doing similar studies in ones own ecosystem.
http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/transect/econiche/econiche.htm and
http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/transect/transrrk.htm
|
|
FOOTNOTE:
Lester Pearson College is a non-profit educational institution, one of the United World Colleges, with students on scholarship from over 80 countries. It operates and manages the Race Rocks Ecological Reserve and Marine Protected Area for the Environment Ministry of BC Parks as a community outreach program. Students involved in our science and activities programs get the opportunity to participate in contributing to a website devoted to providing an educational resource for this unique environment.
racerocks.com was conceived as a project to utilize technology and the internet to bring to the educational community access to a sensitive ecosystem with an interactive website. Our goal was to do that without being part of a negative human environmental impact. Through the generous support of sponsors and partners, in March 2000, the website http://www.racerocks.com/went live on the internet. Since that time multiple fixed and remote control cameras have sent live images continuously and the students and faculty of Lester Pearson College, as part of the ongoing stewardship of this area, have produced a large resource of supportive background materials and archived video. From the outset we have maintained a commitment to present a non-commercialized educational site.
Garry Fletcher
Educational Director, racerocks.com
G.Fletcher, Marine Education Consulting
Victoria, B.C. Canada
|
