Deep sea

One of my favorite guilty pleasures as a kid was to curl up on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and watch cheesy old movies on TV – the cheesier the better. Anything by Ed Wood was good, as well as the early Godzilla movies. My all-time favorite, though, was Gorgo, a monster who emerged from the sea to wreak havoc on anything in its path. The thought of something utterly unknown and foreign under the sea was an irresistible thought as a kid, and something that continues to fascinate me today.

A few places come to mind when I think about uncharted frontiers: deep space, deep sea, and deep inside the tropical rainforest. (Deep, I know!) In a perfect world, our students would have the opportunity to explore these depths on extended field trips where they would get the opportunity make their own discoveries: authentic learning at its best. Since traveling to any of these environments with a class of 30 kids (or more) is nearly impossible, you will have to get creative to use the topics in your classroom. Fortunately, today’s technology can help you bring your students close to these uncharted frontiers without setting a foot outside the classroom.