News

• December 3rd, 2009 – 2:30pm to 3:30pm
• White Elementary School Afterschool program
• 40+ students – 1st thru 5th grade
• “Our Amazing Oceans”

We had a great presentation yesterday with the kids from White Elementary School After School program! I always find it interesting when we have various ages mixed together in one presentation… how the younger ones have so much energy and enthusiasm while the older ones start out cool and aloof. By the end, the energy has spread like wildfire and the older ones are just as excited and having loads of fun while learning! That is just amazing! I look forward to coming back to White Elementary in the Spring and doing additional talks!

• December 1, 2009 – 9am to 12:30pm
• Gridley Middle school –  Tucson, Arizona
• 6th grade science classes, 80 students total
• Our Amazing Oceans

Learning ocean systems in class!

3 classes, 3 different opportunities to get kids excited about the ocean! The class has been working on ecology and environmental issues so our presentation went hand in hand with their studies! We love the chance to work with the middle school age kids as they have lots of information already in their heads and are at the stage where they are putting all those ideas together and getting the BIG picture of how our world works as a living system! So much fun to see! Thanks so much to the kids at Gridley!

• Thursday, Friday and Saturdays in December!
• Reid Park Zoo – near the Polar Bear exhibit
• Ocean photos, Christmas Lights, Fun for all!

Enjoying Zoo Lights!

Teddy Bear Fun!

Paul with the holiday spirit!

The Fin Foundation will be helping Reid Park Zoo with their Zoo Lights this year! Look for us in the Polar Bear area as we share Ocean photography, Arctic snow and Holiday Joy! Stop by and say hello!

We had a great night at the Reid Park Zoo “Zoo Lights!” We had 4 volunteers for Saturday night and we all had a great time! There were loads of people walking through the zoo, looking at the beautiful lights and drinking hot chocolate! We had lots of  people stop at our area, look and learn about our ocean programs and about our artifacts. I had great fun being the designated teddy bear for the night and got to hug a bunch of folks, pose for pictures and high five a bizillion kids! Loves every minute! Looking forward to next weekend!

     Thanks to Paul, Kim, Jeri and George for all of your help!

• November 30th, 2009 – 11:45am to 12:45pm
• Desert Willow Elementary School, Vail, Az
• 1st grade, 160 students
• Our Amazing Oceans

Lots of learing at Desert Willow!

Wow! What a great group of kids today! Over 150 first graders all learning about the ocean and its amazing creatures! Our second year presenting to the kids at Desert Willow! The kids asked some really interesting questions at the end of the hour including “why do you love the ocean animals soo much?” which made me pause… how to explain that?!?!  But hopefully that love helped to inspire some of those kids to protect the oceans!

     Thanks to Ms. Watson for setting up our presentation! We look forward to coming back soon! And thanks to Michael Schrantz for volunteering again and helping make the presentation a lot of fun!

• November 25, 2009 – 9:35 to 10:30am
• Laguna Elementary, Tucson, Az.
• 5th grade, 60+ students
• Our Amazing Oceans

Lots of fun today as we visited the 5th graders over at Laguna Elementary School! We were able to go through “Our Amazing Oceans” in the one hour format (had to speed up just a little!) and the kids all followed along just fine! Many of them knew a lot of basic ocean information already! That is so encouraging considering how far removed from the ocean we are here in the Southwest! Mrs. Hawes is doing a great job! Thanks for getting us set up and we look forward to coming back to Laguna!