Fish as a Marine Resource

By Jesus Sonsong, Elisapeta Alaimaleta, David Monroe,
Jamil Ahmedia, and Toa Suoni

In the Pacific islands, fish are and probably always will be the main source of protein for all of us. Besides providing high quality nutritional value, fish have the potential to become one of the major economical assets of the islands. This will be increasingly true as the world strives to feed its increasing population. However, it also has become alarmingly evident that this valuable resource is encountering serious mismanagement and depletion.

Science as Inquiry
Students will . . .

• Identify questions yet to be investigated and suggest ways of finding answers.
• Record data clearly and accurately in logs and journals.
• Communicate their results in charts, graphs, and drawings, as well as verbally.
• Collaborate effectively with others to get the job done.

Habits of Mind
Students will . . .

• Show they care for and respect living things in the environment.
• Use critical thinking skills to make informed decisions in their everyday lives.

Scientific Connections
Students will . . .

• Apply the concept of interaction to materials, objects, events, organisms, and systems.

Planet Earth
Students will . . .

• Identify habitats in different environments.
• Identify and describe effects of environmental change on living things.

Living Environment
Students will . . .

• Identify ocean and land food chains and food webs.
• Describe the role of technology in selective breeding of certain organisms.
• Value the unique organisms, environments, and ecosystems in the Pacific.

Technology and Society
Students will . . .

• Describe local food production and distribution technologies and complex interactions of these technologies with economics, health and nutrition, depletion of resources, and environmental impact.
• Demonstrate how materials were used to make the inventions and devices they use for the science and technology investigations.
• Compare local food production and distribution technologies with those ofin other places.

Human Society
Students will . . .

• Participate meaningfully in local practices that encourage conservation of the island environment.
• Describe the impact of technology, immigration, and population growth on social changes, choices, and conflict in the Pacific region.
• Keep informed of new technologies and their potential impact on community and culture.

Human Organism
Students will . . .

• Take personal actions applying their knowledge to ensure their own physical and mental health.
• Identify agencies in the community that assist in maintaining and treating physical health.

Students will . . .

• Identify at least 10 of the edible and non-edible fish in their entities (islands) by local and scientific names.
• Prepare a recipe of their favorite fish.
• Describe 1-3 methods of preparing (cooking) fish.
• Discuss the values (both nutritional and economical) of fish.
• Identify the seasons for the common fish sold in the local fish market.
• Discuss fish exporting processes available on their islands.
• Discuss strategies to prevent the rapid depletion of our fish.

Driving Question

As a good citizen, how will you help preserve our saltwater fish resources for the generations to come?

Resources

Print resources:
E. B. Klemm et al., 1995, The Living Ocean: Biology and Technology of the Marine Environment

Electronic resources: crdg@hawaii.edu

Human resources: To be identified by teacher and students

Sites, organizations, and agencies: To be identified by teacher and students

Demonstration of Learning

Learning Fair

In this learning fair, parents and school administrators will be the primary audience. Students will present products, reports, and other student findings from the field trips and class investigations.

Cooking Fair

Students will showcase their recipes for cooking fish to the public (restaurant owners and others).

Criteria for Demonstration of Learning
Students will . . .

• Make a well-organized oral presentation.
• Support their findings with evidence from interviews, investigations, surveys, and other sources.
• Demonstrate effective speaking skills by making eye contact, maintaining appropriate volume, rate, inflection, and posture.
• Use pictures, diagrams, and other visual aids to enhance presentation.
• Debate and dialogue with the audience on important issues facing the subject matter.
• Write to policy makers on the important issues pertaining to fish as a resource.
• Demonstrate a fish recipe.

Tasks for Building Knowledge and Skills

Tasks that students need to do to develop the products and performances for
Demonstration of Learning

Task 1: Classroom Investigation

(What events or ideas do I want to clear up? What is already known? How can I defend my suggestions?)

What should students know, be able to do, and care about?
Students will . . .

• Explain how the ocean is an important resource to help feed the world population.
• Distinguish among some of the resources found in the ocean.
• Acknowledge that fish is one of the most important of these resources.
• Listen attentively and be able to ask good questions.
• Discuss the nutritional and economic values of fish.
• Consider technological/social impacts on our reef fish and their environment.
• Explore the local and cultural ways of harvesting, conserving, preparing, processing, and cooking our local fish.

Activity 1: Direct Teaching

Activity 2: Inquiry Teaching

Teaching Strategy and Procedure:

• Teacher can use the Webbing Strategy or Concept Mapping to probe for students' prior knowledge on ocean resources, fish as a resource, local uses of fish, and related critical issues.
• Students in smaller groiups take an issue or topic out of the concept map and elaborate on it and produce a report or make a presentation.

• Do we sell our fish to outside countries? How often? How much?
• Is there legislations protecting our fish and their environment?
• How can we improve what we already have?
• Are we losing the traditional ways of fishing?

Asessessment: How do we know they know?

• Performance based: The degree of involvment the student has in the webbing activity.

1. Fully participating by listening and contributing
2. Participating by just listening only
3. Seem uninterested.

• Product: Concept Map. Assess content knowledge based upon the quality of students' responses that develop into the class's concept map, and. Note whoich students responded.
• Performance based: Cooperation of each student in the group work.

1. Is the student contributing?
2. Is the student making it easy for others to cooperate?
3. Is the student encouraging others tot participate?
4. Continue list with teacher-and student-generated criteria.

• Content assessment based on the quality of the questions generated.

Materials: Flip chart, markers, tapes

Task 2: Guest Speaker

What should students know, be able to do, and care about?
Students will . . .

• Identify questions and find a way to get answers.
• Listen attentively and record notes.
• Use critical thinking skills to come up with questions to ask.
• Share what they learned with others.
• Effectively communicate their ideas to others.
• Show respect and courtesy.

Activity 1: Inviting a Guest Speaker(s)

• Class decides whom to invite. What do we expect to learn from a guest speaker? (Refer to the student-generated questions under Task 1, Activity 2.)
• Draft a letter of invitation or plan a visit to the speaker to brief him/her on what the class should learn from him/her.

• Product - Look at the quality of student criteria for selecting the guest speaker(s).
• Product - Look at the quality of the letter(s) of invitation for the guest speaker(s). What's in a letter?
• Personal Communication - Teacher asks questions and students respond.
• Performance - Students work in groups.

Activity 2: Guest Speaker's Presentation

Procedure:

• Introduce the speaker.
• Students listen attentively and take notes.
• Students pose questions and note responses.

Assessment:

• Teacher observes the students in order to note student involvement in the presentation. Use a checklist for who is paying attention.
• Note student questioning and follow-up questions.

Activity 3: Group Discussion After the Speaker Departs

Teaching Strategy and Procedure:

• Working as a whole group, the teacher quickly asks students to reflect on the key points presented by the speaker.
• Students should make connections between the speaker's points and what has already been learned in class.
• Students will write a short report on what the speaker presented.

Assessment:

• Performance - Student reflection: Did the students listen attentively and understand the speaker's main points? A checklist can be used to record who shares and with what frequency.
• Performance - Student responses, questions, and comments on the speaker's presentation .
• Product - Individual student reports. Criteria on writing a report can be developed collaboratively by the teacher and students.

Task 3: Field Trip - Public Fish Market

What should students know, be able to do, and care about?
Students will . . .

• Identify critical and important questions that need to be answered.
• Show they care about what is happening to the environment and the resources.
• Explain how fish are processed and packaged.
• Participate in local practices that promote the conservation of fish in the local environment.

Activity 1: Field Trip - Preparations

Teaching Strategy and Procedure:

• Teacher must visit local fish markets to make sure what students need to see is there.
• Teacher communicates with fish market managers or owners about purpose of the field trip.
• Students in small groups will brainstorm some key questions which may include:
  • What are the most common local fish purchased in the market?
  • How much fish is purchased per day, month, and year?
  • How are the fish priced?
  • Is there any interaction or friction between the fish market and other government-owned fishing agencies?
  • What is the impact both on the fish stock and job market of foreign fishing fleets in our waters?
  • How do local fish markets preserve their fish to maintain the freshness of the fish?
  • Are there any conservation laws on different types of fish? What are they?
• Preparation for the field trip:
  
  

  What to wear, what to do, what not to do, and other directions.
  Review fish names and key features of the different kinds of fish.

• Performance - Observe and note how students work in groups. Make sure the students are familiar with the criteria for group work.
• Product - Assess content knowledge and understanding based on the quality of the student-generated questions. Make sure the students are familiar with the criteria for good questions.
• Oral quiz on the names and kinds of fish.

Materials: Chart of the local fish

Activity 2: Field Trip and Interview

Teaching Strategy and Procedure:

• Product - Students, in their groups, observe and identify the different kinds of fish, noting names, numbers, key features, habitats, ways of cooking, etc.
• Performance - Students conduct interviews and take notes.

• Performance - Students will identify the different fish species.
• Product - Responses and notes from the interviews.
• Performance - How the interview was carried out. The interaction between the interviewer and interviewee; the language used by the students conducting the interview. Criteria must be developed in advance for each of these activities.

Activity 3: After the Field Trip

Teaching Strategy and Procedure:

• Student Teacher Action Review (STAR) reflects and records anything that might have interested the students.
• Compare the responses to questions posed to fisherman and fish managers. Make a concept map.
• Distinguish several major themes (conservation, legislation, economy, etc.) based on the questions generated by the students. Have students pursue these themes to write reports.

Assessment:

• Personal Communications - Note quality and accuracy of student responses.
• Product - Concept maps: Base content assessment on the quality of student responses.
• Project - Written and/or oral Rreport. Criteria: What's in a report? Determine this with the students.

Materials: Flip charts and markers

Task 4: Your Favorite Recipe

• Describe the impact of technology on the community and culture.
• Collaborate effectively to get the work done.
• Use critical thinking to make good decisions.
• Apply the concept of fish as a source of food to a real world situation.
• Display local food technology and other food-distribution technologies.

Activity 1: Make Fish Cakes From an Underused Fish Species

• Read and discuss The Living Ocean, Chapter 11: Fish as Food Resource.
• Explain some of the main concepts and terms in the reading.
• Perform the activity in Chapter 11: Make fish cakes from underused fish species.

• Pencil and Paper - A quiz on the reading on the Chapter 11:Fish as Food Resource.
• Personal Communications - Teacher's questioning and observing while students are on task.
• Performance - Students working in groups. Use a checklist with descriptors.
• Product - The completed fish cakes. Remember to set criteria ahead of time.

Materials: See The Living Ocean, Chapter 11: Fish as Food Resource, pp. 127-132.

Mathematics

Social Studies

Language Arts

Students will . . .

• Use computation and estimation. I do not understand.
  • Use computation, estimation, and proportion to solve problems.
  • Use estimation to check the reasonableness of the answers.
• Explore problems and describe results using graphical, numerical, algebraic, and verbal mathematical models and representations.

Students will . . .

• Identify economic resources of the islands.
• Discuss fish as an important resource for the islands.
• Discuss how foreign influences affect island practices and ways of doing things.
• Name some of the Pacific Rim nations that influence the economy of our islands.
• Discuss how/why the fishing industry is growing in the islands.
• Discuss trading activities that have taken place in the islands since the 1500's.
• Discuss the fishing rights agreements with that islands have with foreign countries.

Students will . . .

• Be learners who are highly competent listeners and speakers.
  • Give oral presentations.
  • Show respect for others' opinions.
  • Listen critically.
  • Use language persuasively.
• Be learners who use proper language and value good writing skills.
  • Write to inform others.
  • Take notes and write summaries.