Leatherback Sea
Turtle conservation is an around-the-clock effort for the Leatherback Trust (LTL)
located in Playa Grande, Costa Rica – where our sixth graders travel annually to learn about and participate in the research and conservation of
this endangered animal.
Over 3,000
miles away, BCS second graders engaged in their own endeavor to help save the
leatherbacks, beginning with a teacher-run field trip to Half Moon Bay in
October to learn about the lifecycle of the leatherback sea turtles.
Among the many activities
that day was a relay race where students recreated the lifecycle stages of a
leatherback sea turtle by first dragging their bodies across the beach with
their front fins, then digging a hole in the sand, maneuvering to get the eggs
into the hole from their backpack, and finally covering up the hole (all with
fins on their hands the entire time!).
This highly
engaging field trip helped provide students with ample background knowledge
before they started their Leather Back Sea Turtle Project Based Learning (PBL)
and Design Thinking unit in which students worked in groups of three to explore
the driving question “How can we, as citizens
of the environment, design a way to protect the leatherback sea turtle?”
In order to
best answer that question, students had to do research with books, articles,
and videos where students learned how to take notes and highlight important
information in a variety of expository texts. For each stage of the life cycle, second
graders worked together to identify specific threats that are currently
dangerous for leatherback sea turtles:
Egg Stage: Extreme
heat
Egg Stage:
Egg poachers
Hatchling
Stage: Predators
Juvenile
Stage: Fishing nets
Coastal
Feeding Stage: Plastic bags/trash in the ocean
Breeding/Migrating
Stage: Oil spills
Nesting Stage:
Habitat destruction
After
identifying the threats, students began working with Mrs. Reed in the
MakerSpace to begin the Design Thinking process. The first step is to build empathy – which
second grade teacher Ms. Greenstadt said came very quickly to her students.
“Seeing a lot
of pictures and videos of leatherback sea turtles helped the students build
empathy quickly, and they loved the idea of having the power to make a positive
change in the world,” said Ms. Greenstadt.
“They realized that anyone could come up with a great idea that might
help the turtles – even a second grader!”
Building on
their empathy and knowledge of leatherbacks, students came up with solutions
against specific threats facing the turtles, and were able to use materials
like straws, cardboard, plastic, and paper to create a rapid prototype of their
solution.
An early idea
from a group included having a “hot sauce firing machine” to fire hot sauce
into eyes of poachers. Students
rationalized that the hot sauce wouldn’t harm the poachers in a serious way,
but it would be enough to prevent them from getting the eggs.
Another group
designed a protective bubble for sea turtles to travel in that would protect
them from getting caught in nets. After
receiving helpful feedback from the classmates, they changed their prototype
from a plastic bubble to a comfortable towel raft, noting that the sea turtles
may not like being in a bubble for very long.
The raft also included rubber spikes on the sides to further protect the
turtles, but also not harming any other species in the process. All students went on to design a 3-D
sketch-up simulation to virtually test their prototypes.
Students
recently shared their PowerPoint and podcast presentations documenting all of
the details of their projects with parents and visitors. Below are a few examples of the tremendous
work done by our second graders who are leading the way in global citizenship and innovation at BCS!
