Sixth-graders impress with Deep Sea Museum
The sixth-graders showed off their research skills in an interactive Deep Sea Museum.
The sixth-grade class has been hard at work over the last four weeks developing their capstone project - a Deep Sea museum. In a culmination of their efforts, they transformed Middle School science teacher and experiential education coordinator Mr. Johnathan BySura's classroom into a museum of deep-sea creatures and undersea volcanoes on Tuesday, February 13.
All outside light was blocked out and the room walls and windows covered in black cloth. The lights were off with only blacklights lighting the room. The deep sea creatures that the students had created to glow in the dark, like their real counterparts, hung from the ceiling or sat on displays while recordings of the student's research played on a screen on one side of the room. The sixth graders eagerly shared with visitors information that they had learned about their creatures and seemed to enjoy the opportunity to play host.
Each year, students in both the sixth and seventh grades are expected to complete a Capstone Project in science. The sixth-grade capstone is the yearly museum, an idea that Mr. BySura has been developing for over 14 years.
“The process is simple. First, we develop a topic that the students have a deep interest in, or in some cases, one that we can work collaboratively on as an entire school,” shared BySura. “The next step is for each student to do research and then to design how they want their project to turn out. What will this thing look like when it is done?”
Four weeks ago, BySura tasked the sixth-graders with both a team-based project and an individual project. This year, the students chose to create volcanoes and a whale skeleton as their team-based project and then worked on individual deep-sea organisms as their independent projects. Their challenge was to accomplish all of this work over four weeks of in-class work - no outside work was permitted. They were asked to create their creatures, write a paper, design and created their team based projects and to be prepared to give informal presentations on their research to visitors to the museum.
“This sixth-grade capstone is a perfect precursor to a more data-driven, traditional style presentation that they will need to give for their seventh-grade capstone,” said BySura. “It prepares them in many ways to tackle planning, material gathering, organization, time management, and cooperative learning. Most importantly, this is an incredibly fun program. In many situations, the students don't even realize how important the skills that they are learning are, and simply view it as fun. As a teacher, I see it as much more, fundamentally helping them learn how to manage themselves, their time, their behavior, and their work. My role is simply to support them. The students run the show, and I facilitate as needed. I also help set up the final exhibit.”
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Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School
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Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School is a private, coeducational day and boarding school for grades Pre-K through 12. Centrally located between Atlanta, GA, Greenville, SC, and Asheville, NC, we prepare young people for college, career, and a lifetime of leadership and service.
