Get a sea creature fix by checking out Puget Sound Estuarium’s educational videos
This time of year, education coordinator Aeriel Wauhob would typically be leading field trips on the beach and “leading a mermaid life.” Instead, she is recording educational videos for the thousands of schoolchildren Puget Sound Estuarium typically educates on its estuarine ecosystem.
“The teachers are excited to still have outside resources, because this is new for them too,” said Wauhob of the science videos she is creating. “It’s uncharted territory that we’re going through right now. We have always gotten good feedback from our in-person programs, so we just want to continue allowing that to happen.”
The Puget Sound Estuarium is a marine life discovery center in downtown Olympia that offers community programs and provides K-12 educational resources. It serves school districts in Thurston, Pierce and Mason counties, and reached 3,500 students with its programs last year. This year, the nonprofit expects to reach many more with its online programming.
As K-12 schools in Washington closed due to the coronavirus, the Puget Sound Estuarium began converting its in-person programming to a video series titled “Exploring with the Estuarium.” Topics are centered around the estuarine ecosystem, and include subjects such as the history of Olympia’s shoreline. While the videos are made for students, they are free online and available to everyone.
The curriculum-based science video series aligns with the state’s Next Generation Science Standards and Ocean Literacy Frameworks for grades 5-10. They are meant for teachers, or parents, to use as an aid with their students.
“It’s at the discretion of the teacher for what works for them,” Wauhob said. “If they’re talking about a certain topic that aligns with one of our videos, they can easily have the students watch the video and then do the curriculum worksheet that goes with it.”
Wauhob has almost converted all the Puget Sound Estuarium’s current educational programming to online videos, and is beginning to cover new topics. Currently, she is working on a video about the geology of the Puget Sound.
“We’re going to continue to do more curriculum videos, expand the topics that we’re talking about,” Wauhob said. “Whatever the teachers are needing support in, that’s what we’re here for — to support the teachers in their distance learning.”
The estuarium also produces a “Tiny Tides” video series, where volunteers read environmental stories for preschoolers.
“We had to adapt on the fly,” said Paris McClusky, Puget Sound Estuarium executive director. “The main thing is we didn’t want to let the community and our K-12 student base down, who are having to hunker down and homeschool.”
The estuarium has been closed to the public since a few days before the stay-at-home order went into effect. Currently, McClusky expects the estuarium to be closed to the public until late June or early July.
“We had broached the subject of COVID-19, but it wasn’t on our radar that it was going to completely shut down operations,” McClusky said. “So in mid March, when it did shut down operations, we started to adapt quickly.”
In the midst of the coronavirus, the estuarium still has to care for its animals. The marine life discovery center has four saltwater tanks for marine life, a freshwater tank for newts and an additional tank that it uses for new sea life to ensure the animals don’t bring in any diseases.
Staff and volunteers take turns feeding the animals. Once per week, the estuarium streams a live feeding on its Facebook page.
In one video, two rough-skinned newts — affectionately named Olivia Newton-John and Fig Newton — are seen eating brine shrimp as a volunteer recounts her newt knowledge. In another, a volunteer is feeding a clam to a purple sea star.
Puget Sound Estuarium Board President John Campbell said the sea stars are some of his favorite sea life to feed.
“You hold the clam against one of their arms, they’ll taste it or smell it and start latching onto it,” Campbell said. “Then they latch onto it and start pulling it apart.
Because its still uncertain how K-12 education will look this fall, the estuarium plans to continue offering online programming and streaming the live feedings. McClusky said the estuarium is preparing for a “hybrid approach” for students this fall, with both in-person and virtual offerings.
“I think right now we need to have a contingency plan if COVID-19 spikes again in Thurston County,” McClusky said.
McClusky said Capital Region ESD 113 and STEM Like ME! recently offered the Puget Sound Estuarium an emergency grant the nonprofit needs to continue the Explore with the Estuarium video series. McClusky said that while some of the estuarium’s smaller grants fell through due to coronavirus disruptions, the nonprofit has retained its largest grants.
“We have retained enough (funding) to stay afloat, keep everyone and maintain everyone’s hours,” McClusky said. “We’re not hurting; we’re skating by.”