We are the Ocean: Students Plunge Into Hands-On Learning

Leaning as far as they could over their desks, Farallone View Elementary School fifth graders peered inside a gutted fish Friday morning, dissected right before their eyes moments earlier.

In a break from normal end of school year activities and recent STAR testing, students enjoyed a week of marine-themed activities and demonstrations, which included sailing lessons in the middle of their courtyard and preparing freshly caught fish to make fish tacos. 

A staple of Farallone View’s science curriculum for 18 years, the yearly celebration aims to get students excited about learning about their surrounding oceans. This year’s theme, “We Are the Ocean,” focused on the complicated relationship between humans and the ocean, according to PTO treasurer and event coordinator Liz Osborne.

Osborne explained that the idea behind Oceans Week is to pull students into the interrelationship in the most hands-on ways possible, showing them how we affect the oceans and how they affect us through activities that engage their curiosity and get them excited.

“This is a big week for both the students and the teachers,” Osborne said, adding that an intensive science program leads students into the event, which becomes a celebration of learning that teaches kids while entertaining them. “The teachers really bring all of this into their curriculums. The kids are so excited – it’s like their reward at the end of the year.”

While ocean-oriented activities ran throughout the week, Friday provided a sort of culmination, with a day packed full of activities that ranged from an elephant seal puppet show presented by the Pigeon Point Environmental Education Program to a discussion on the consequences of an oil spill.

Osborne said that the event is a group effort each year, with parent volunteers and school staff reaching out to the community and recruiting various presenters, many of whom volunteer their time to give students a lesson in marine ecology.

One such volunteer, local scientist Rob Weimer, spent the morning showing fifth graders how to dissect a fish, teaching them various parts of its anatomy. As Weimer presented students with eyeballs and fish stomachs, local fishermen and Farallone View alum Tyler Utz led a demonstration in cleaning whole fish and preparing them for cooking.

Utz, now a junior at , said that he has been fishing for about two years now, and wanted to get local youth interested in the process.

“We want to try to get people informed about fishing,” he said, adding that he found the students to be very engaged in the lesson.

After a session of cleaning and slicing, some of which students got to perform themselves, volunteers got ready to fire up a grill for a fish taco feast that the whole school would participate in.

“This educational experience really shows the whole process,” Osborne said, adding that the week’s events aimed to give students a complete picture of how much the ocean gives us and how we can help protect it.

As Osborne noted, the effects of weeks past have shown in the knowledge students have retained and displayed, both throughout the school year and during this year’s Oceans Week.

“Some of our presenters come back and say, ‘They know so much!’” she said. “By the time they get to the fifth grade, they’re really resources in themselves.”

To help provide a lasting reminder of the lessons learned throughout Oceans Week, each student got the chance to help paint a community mural on one of the school’s walls. Parent Chris Bauman directed the mural, whose theme focused on plankton.

Bauman said that his daughter, a Farallone View fourth grader, helped inspire the theme after watching a program about plankton and becoming fascinated with it. Calling plankton the “unsung heroes of the seas,” he said that the tiny organisms encapsulated the week’s theme.

“Individually we are drops, but together we are the ocean,” he said.