updates from my school's coral reef project

[brandoniscool]

local reefer visits stratton

local reefer visits stratton

A local reefer has been selling healthy looking frags on craigslist and I invited him by Stratton to tour the project. Much to my surprise he turned out to be a high school student and a pretty accomplished reef keeper. He grows enough coral to sell in a nano tank on a very slim budget. I'm impressed and hope that he can come by on a regular basis.

He gave us some frags

And got some in return

http://mrrutherfordisawesome.weebly.com/uploads/3/2/6/0/3260808/8978559_orig.jpg

<iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/118086680" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>


FYI I welcome anyone to contact me and arrange a tour. My donors and I want this to be a community resource.

 

[brandoniscool]

local reefer visits stratton

local reefer visits stratton

A local reefer has been selling healthy looking frags on craigslist and I invited him by Stratton to tour the project. Much to my surprise he turned out to be a high school student and a pretty accomplished reef keeper. He grows enough coral to sell in a nano tank on a very slim budget. I'm impressed and hope that he can come by on a regular basis.

He gave us some frags

And got some in return

FYI I welcome anyone to contact me and arrange a tour. My donors and I want this to be a community resource.

 

[brandoniscool]

<iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/118088891" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/118088891">Video Jan 28, 2 15 02 PM</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user28704363">Brandon Rutherford</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

 

[brandoniscool]

It was a very busy weekend. I have been working with several faculty members at the University of Illinois to discuss how my project is teaching academic skills and content knowledge through reef aquariums and open ended projects. This work will help document the work that I'm doing and hopefully create a precedent for other teacher in my district. I'm quickly building more aquariums than my school can take care of and I'm hoping other schools in my town can join Stratton's Coral Reef Project.

Yesterday a generous couple decided to donate their 50 gallon freshwater setup. They were super nice and clearly gave with the intention of passing along their tank to a group of kids that will enjoy it. The new tank will be placed by the principal's office. An area that might benefit from some calming influences. It will be fresh water for now but I'm going to create a soft coral reef tank as soon as I have the resources.

Rohan, one of the students who works on the project and specializes in our rotifer culture, invited me to his house for some gourmet Indian food.

 

[brandoniscool]

Our new female peacock mantis shrimp is thriving. She lost her egg clutch unfortunately but she very active and comes out of her cave to check out visitors. A name for the shrimp is pending class discussion. Anyone have any idea of how often she should be fed? I have been feeding her small pieces of krill soaked in Selcon 3 times a week. I would prefer to vary her diet but not sure what else is good. Suggestions welcome.

 

[brandoniscool]

Donation From Synergy Reef

Donation From Synergy Reef

The family owned company Synergy Reef Systems has been following our project since it began. Today we received a new custom made sump for the 90 gallon reef tank. The owners of Synergy saw that the jenky acrylic sump we got on Craigslist was not going to last and generously donated a new one.

Synergy Reef hand makes all of their acrylic pieces and just moved into a newly designed building. I know that the donation eats into their profit margin and I'm very thankful for them investing in my students.

 

[brandoniscool]

and a funny thing happened

and a funny thing happened

So after I took a photo of our new sump I was very concerned about putting it away. It was sooo clean and had the perfect surface of new acrylic, plus the inlaid neon pane that makes the Synergy Reef System sumps look cool.

I picked it up and took it to a reserved space in the next room and returned 10 seconds later to anarchy. No one will admit who started the styrofoam peanut fight, but it was in full swing when I came back.

<iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/118667638" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/118667638">styrofoam peanut fight</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user28704363">Brandon Rutherford</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

I let the fight go on for about a minute while I snapped the picture, but I think it was one minute too long.

Have you every tried rubbing a styrofoam peanut between your hands? It shreds into tiny flakes the size of panko breading that has the weight and flying capabilities of down feathers. Now try to imagine 20 nine year olds rolling around in a huge pile of it, throwing it all around the room. Because the fight happened on a carpet, all of the little particles became charged with static electricity and stuck to everything, especially long hair on the girls.

And 3 minutes after it ended, the bell for class rang and the kids had to go back to their home rooms. I tried to frantically have them dust off but they ended up tracking the styrofoam snow all over the building. When students left for the day I saw styrofoam in rooms across the school and in the hair of kids from kindergarten to 5th grade. The janitors were livid and insisted that i clean it all up myself from all of the hallways.

Aislin was a complete trouper and stayed after school for 3 hours to help me clean up. It couldn't be vacuumed well and we found after a lot of trial and error that blowing it with an air compressor and then using a dust mop worked best.

A major pain in the butt, but in the words of one student "it was pretty epic"

 

[jlnielsen13]

As a teacher and a reefer this is an amazing project and opportunity you have given your students! I just have a 29 bio cube in my high school bio class and have dreamed about setting something up like you have here!

Thank you for doing what you do for your kids and GO ILLINI!

ILL-

JIM

 

[brandoniscool]

student writing

student writing

During language arts instruction, students can self select topics to research and write short essays about. Here are a few:

 

[brandoniscool]

Word is getting around and we had three people from outside Stratton tour the project today including this former teacher that used to keep freshwater aquariums in his classroom. Aquarium loving teachers unite!

 

[brandoniscool]

Great News

Great News

My project is growing into new classrooms and hopefully, in the future, more schools. Building new tanks requires not only gathering resources for their construction, but also ensuring they have an ongoing supply of the consumables necessary to maintain their operation. A salt supply is in constant demand and is one of the main variables that limit the number of classrooms that can support an aquarium. United Pet Group, Tropic Marin and AquaCraft have been instrumental in building my project. Lou from Tropic Marin has regularly been teaching my students about marine chemistry via skype and I just learned that Tropic Marin has decided to sponsor our project by providing salt now and into the future. As soon as my stockpiles run out I will use Tropic Marin salt exclusively. I am looking forward to using this resource to advance marine exploration in my school district.

Lou laying down the law about alkalinity

 

[brandoniscool]

white worms

white worms

I am always looking for ways to make my project sustainable and add a maintenance routine that will give another student a part on the project. So when a friend had an ailing white worm culture that he was going to throw out so we took it over.

Today we looked through dirt for over an hour with tweezers to find the small little guys squiggling around.

I know that white worms shouldn't be fed exclusively and need to be cleaned are a possible source of disease. I hope to mainly feed them as a treat to our freshwater fish and use them for finicky sick fish like my mandarine in QT.

 

[CStrickland]

This is such a beautiful thread, makes me miss working in special ed classrooms.

Really proud of your reef bosses for stepping up and teaching their friends so many cool things about reefs! All their hard work is really paying off, the tanks look super healthy!

I'm due for a new bucket of salt and I'm way too cheap for Tropic Marin normally, but I can swing it after seeing Lou with the kids. I'll be sure to note it on the order, and look to your sponsors first in my other purchases.
Good luck and very well done, thank you!

 

[brandoniscool]

All their hard work is really paying off, the tanks look super healthy!

I'm due for a new bucket of salt and I'm way too cheap for Tropic Marin normally, but I can swing it after seeing Lou with the kids. I'll be sure to note it on the order, and look to your sponsors first in my other purchases.
Good luck and very well done, thank you!

Thanks so much for this response. I reflect often on the concept of stewardship, the need for people to step forward and create positive change. I see the need for adults to intervene in the lives of children who live in dysfunctional situations. And I also think that the marine aquarium keeping community needs leaders to promote and protect our art. Thank you for showing your support by your purchase.

I also wanted to add that I am a major proponent of water changes. I have seen several amazing reef systems that only receive a 10% water change a month. However I have always found that a 20% water change a week with high quality salt is one of the major components of keeping a healthy tank.

 

[brandoniscool]

Mindfullness training

Mindfullness training

Today I'm at a seminar for students who either have emotional disorders or social/emotional problems that significantly impact their growth at school. I am continually aware of how stress and lack of metacognitive skills can physically prevent kids from being able to learn and can cause almost irreparable damage. So many times I have prepared an amazing lesson only to have kids not participate or retain information because of stress or anxiety. Research has found that "The human brain is a powerful learning machine, and the parts of the brain most involved in acquiring new cognitive skills also demand the most energy. As stress levels increase, the brain begins to shut down these learning regions to save energy for a "œfight or flight" response.​"

The ways that aquariums benefit the emotional climate of a classroom is very clear to me, but I have been looking for a more structured way of teaching kids how to use my coral reef project as a way to calm down, reflect and develop skills to self-address their problematic behavior.

I have been reading about Mindfulness training, which is described as 'paying attention in a particular way, on purpose". So many of the children that I work with feel like they are a hostage to their emotions. They have feelings of fear, anger, jealousy, joy, etc but don't know what triggered the emotion nor how to retain positive feelings and neutralize negative ones. They act out and damage their relationships with others but don't know why and in a way, can't be held fully responsible because they didn't have complete control over themselves.

I have found that working with the Coral Reef Project innately helps students be more aware by requiring them to diagnose the health of the ecosystem and physical systems and imparts a calmness that allows 'difficult' kids to work together harmoniously. But when these kids step away from the project and go into a different setting their problems continue. I really want the Coral Reef Project to be a complete intervention for struggling kids, I need to focus more on using it as a tool for self reflection.

On Monday I met with Jason Scott and Wendy Heller, founders of the Mindful Teacher Foundation. Both are employees of the University of Illinois and Wendy Heller is a neuroscientist and licensed clinical psychologist. They have expressed interest in working with my class and toured the project with their grad students. I hope to make this a big part of my use of aquariums as teaching tools and will share my findings.

Jason, Wendy and their grad students tour the project.

 

[deansreef]

all we had was wood shop LOL

 

[liverock]

Awesome Brandon....great work..

you are doing really well with the orange tree sponge...good job!

Richard TBS
www.tbsaltwater.com :lolspin::lolspin::lolspin:

 

[brandoniscool]

Awesome Brandon....great work..

you are doing really well with the orange tree sponge...good job!

Richard TBS
www.tbsaltwater.com :lolspin::lolspin::lolspin:

Thanks Richard, it does have some tissue loss at the top though. Any tips on how I can protect or revitalize the tissue that looks damaged?

 

[liverock]

Normal stuff for sponges, the fact that you have kept it alive this long is pretty amazing, as you just can't feed them enough!

it was almost a year ago I sent that to you?

Richard TBS
www.tbsaltwater.com :lolspin::lolspin::lolspin:

 

[brandoniscool]

it was almost a year ago I sent that to you?

Yep, some of the smaller sponges have had almost no tissue loss. I have to say that almost everything you sent us is flourishing.