The Development of a New Curriculum!

The NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office in partnership with NOAA's National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS) has developed a new place-based curriculum module about the Chesapeake Bay that brings real-time and archived data into K-12 classrooms. This module, part of the larger Estuaries 101 curriculum, will teach key principles and concepts of estuarine ecology and illustrate how estuaries relate to other human and ecological systems, all while teaching to science standards. Activities using the NERRS' System-Wide Monitoring Program (SWMP) and the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System (CBIBS) will allow teachers to bring relevant, real-time scientific data into the classroom.

Estuaries 101 is a curriculum to help students become more oceans-literate by increasing their knowledge of coastal and estuarine science and their awareness of how coasts and oceans affect their daily lives. Estuaries 101 will be organized and developed in four parts: K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12 grades.

In the first phase of Estuaries 101 curriculum development (2007-2008), we will create modules with inquiry- and experience-based activities for high-school science courses. Three modules will focus on Earth Science, Physical Science and Life Science. Because they are based on the science standards many teachers are required to teach to, these modules will easily integrate into teachers' existing curriculum. Through the use of these curriculum modules, the NERRS expects to use estuaries as a vehicle for teaching about bigger ideas such as "habitats and evolutionary adaptations" (for biology) or "coastal processes" (for Earth science). Estuaries 101 will introduce estuarine concepts and lessons to help students use and apply data, such as the NERRS' System-Wide Monitoring Program (SWMP) data , and engage them in authentic science investigations. A fourth module will provide place-based learning about the Chesapeake Bay as the largest estuary in North America. This module will demonstrate how broad estuarine concepts can be applied to understanding processes and conditions in the Chesapeake Bay area and will highlight real-time data from the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System and the Chesapeake Bay Observing System .

The Estuaries 101 curriculum will be correlated to the National Science Education Standards, the Principles and Standards for School Mathematics, and the Ocean Literacy Principles and Concepts.

Use of the Estuaries 101 curriculum will be encouraged and supported through professional development training hosted by individual Reserves and at professional meetings across the nation.