Even though most people would think that our Environmental Education Centre goes on holiday along with all of the Western Cape schools, this is definitely not the case. Holiday time gives us the opportunity to offer special courses for learners who are keen on some extra learning outside of school. And where the beginning of the year is aimed at primary school children, the June/July holidays is for the high schoolers.

Three weeks of holiday, three different courses. Our first one took place from 24-28 June and was a Matric Life Science Revision Workshop. Sponsored by Eskom, we hosted 31 grade 12s from 13 different schools to take part in the five-day workshop.

Students tackled the topic of population dynamics and human impact on wild populations, with the aid of sardines. All photos by Katja Rockstroh

The topic was expanded further with Smarties, by doing a tag and release exercise

The week was productive and all participants walked away with, hopefully, a better understanding of the different matric biology topics as well as notes and past papers to use for their upcoming exams.

Week two of the holidays was dedicated to a completely new course, also sponsored by Eskom. Run by Russell Stevens, our Head of Education, this Marine Science Course was for grade 10s and 11s interested in pursuing a career in the marine sciences and learning more about the various aspects of an oceanographer’s job.

Professor George Branch of the University of Cape Town came in to speak to the participants about scientific method as well as to discuss the various projects that these students have been tasked with as a post course activity

The course participants got a first-hand look at what pressure does to an item underwater, as senior Aquarium teacher Xavier Zylstra (in the Kelp Forest exhibit), Iain Robertson of Iain’s Scuba School (on the right) and Head of Education Russell Stevens (on the left) are explaining

A symposium will be held with the students on the results of their projects, which they will complete in pairs.

The last holiday programme that we ran was the SeaFans Course. This course is in its second year and is for grade 8s and 9s. We had 24 eager youngsters with us from 8-12 July.

The course offers an introduction to the marine sciences and gives this age group an idea of what they would be studying should they choose this field. This is especially important for grade 9s, as this is the grade in which final subject choices are made.

The SeaFans looked at the different densities of water. Here the different layers can be clearly seen with food colouring. The layers are composed of warm freshwater, cold freshwater and cold sea water. Can you guess which layer is which?

Aside from classroom activities, the SeaFans also got to go on a boat ride on the Ocean Adventurer to, hopefully, see some of the wild marine fauna in Table Bay

A rocky shore visit was also included, giving them the chance to find some marine invertebrates in their natural habitat

Our holiday flew past, with our courses keeping us busy and we got to meet a great bunch of young people each week.

Our last holiday course for the year will be our very popular Young Biologist programme. This course, aimed at grade 10s, will take place during the September holidays (23-29 September) and is free of charge. Participants are chosen based on motivational letters. Deadline is 30 August. For more information on how to apply, please contact Katja Rockstroh on education@aquarium.co.za or call 021 418 3823.

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