The summer issue of Coastwatch, the magazine of the North Carolina Sea Grant, features an in-depth article on “Our Amazing Coast” workshops for elementary school teachers held across North Carolina this past school year. Designed to help educators engage young learners with science using hands-on materials, the “Our Amazing Coast” curriculum was first piloted in Georgia and is based on the book GEORGIA’S AMAZING COAST, published by the University of Georgia Press in association with Georgia Sea Grant.The book, written by David Bryant and George Davidson, is uniquely structured with one hundred self-contained plates each featuring a coastal creature with its common and scientific name and a brief, engaging yet informative description that helps capture the attention of younger readers. The accompanying curriculum, written by Georgia teacher Becci Curry for the Center for Ocean Science Education Excellence-Southeast, explicitly targets Georgia science standards for grades 3, 4 and 5 and extends the book’s usefulness with challenges like the “Coastal Marsh Survival Game” or organizers to help students classify the organisms found in the book.
