First Grade Explorers have been working on an exciting project this spring in STEM class. During thier third quarter unit on animal habitats, Mrs. Aschberger incorporated a Design Thinking routine focusing on designing animal enrichment items, specifically for African penguins.
Students first watched the behaviors of the penguins via the Georgia Aquarium web cam and documented the different behaviors they saw them do. They studied penguin behaviors and their characteristics, and then took a look at different ideas of enrichment items that are used in aquarium habitats. Students then took different materials and created their own prototypes of enrichment toys.
Mrs. Aschberger reached out to Georgia Aquarium, Atlanta Zoo, and Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut to give our students feedback on their enrichment designs. All three were sent a short video of the designs of enrichment items that students created for the African Penguins and all three institutions responded with the students! However, Mystic Aquarium wanted to take it a step further and asked for the actual prototypes that they could show the real penguins in their aquarium habitat. The head bird keeper, Tracy Camp, then enlisted the help of two college interns to help design two REAL enrichment items for their African Penguins inspired by the prototypes created by our students!
Watch a short video of the final project, and a blog post from Mystic Aquarium. We are beyond inspired to see the impact of the museum model in action. Great job, Explorers!
