

Education Immersion Center




You are a member of the Curio Underwater Research Team that includes some of the world’s leading marine scientists. Your mission is clear, take your research rig out into the open sea and assist on scientific expeditions to collect data from the marine life around you and learn about what’s upsetting certain aspects of the food chain in the ocean’s precious ecosystem
DURING YOUR MISSION, YOU WILL HAVE ON HAND A RESEARCH GUIDE ON HAND TO HELP YOU CONDUCT YOUR RESEARCH IN AN ORGANIZED WAY. PERIODICALLY. YOU WILL COME UP FOR AIR AT WHICH TIME YOU WILL COMPLETE WORK IN YOUR GUIDE. ONCE THE MISSION IS COMPLETE, YOU WILL ANALYZE YOUR FINDINGS AND DRAW CONCLUSIONS BASED UPON THE EVIDENCE.



During your virtual reality experience, you will practice systems thinking by Analyzing how parts of a whole interact with each other to produce overall outcomes in a complex marine ecosystem.
By working as a member of a marine research team, in which your objective is to investigate how members of a food web interact with each other, you will learn aoubt cause and effect relationships and feedback loops and how they are impacted by anthropogenic disturbances.
Key areas you will experience and learn about include ecosystem dynamics, trophic levels, food webs, food chains, predator prey relationships, trophic level transfer efficiency. marine zoology and sustainability, and anthropogenic disturbances.
ESSENTIAL SKILLS AND OBJECTIVES
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Practice marine biology data collection on various species and manipulate that data for analysis, using virtual field tools and computer spreadsheets for producing graphs and charts, in order to understand current conditions and future trends within habitats
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Define 'food chain' and 'trophic level'
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Create an ocean food-chain model
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Explain the relationship between primary, secondary, and tertiary consumers
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Learn about the importance of keystone species
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS
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How does anthropogenic activity affect marine biology?
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What are some factors that determine marine animal habitats?
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How are tertiary consumers dependent on the environmental conditions of primary and secondary consumers?
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