The Two Oceans Aquarium Education Foundation has come up with ingenious ways to keep yourself and the kids busy. The foundation has created three online learning courses for different ages. The first course, ‘Ocean Fun-atics’ is perfect for little ones in Grade 1 to 3. The ‘Marine bio-basics’ course is suitable for 16 years and older. The final course, Thetha isiXhosa is perfect for the whole family. Here is more information on each.
Ocean Fun-atic course:
The Two Oceans Aquarium Education Foundation is offering a brand-new offering for our young fans in Grades 1 to 3. Ocean Fun-atics is a series of live sessions that are filled with fun facts about marine animals. Each day will feature a different topic, such as how animals play hide and seek, animals and their different homes, and how you can tell a shark and fish apart.
Course details:
- Dates: 13 to 17 July OR 27 to 31 July 2020
- Duration: 45-minute sessions Monday to Friday
- Format: Zoom sessions with our teachers
- Live sessions: 09h00 each day
- Cost: R60 per session or R300 for all five, per child
- Age: Grades one to three
This course only has capacity for 20 children per session, so book now to avoid disappointment.
Zoom will be used to connect with a maximum of 20 children at a time. Educators Wandiswa, Bianca and Chanelle will keep the kids entertained with pictures, actions, songs, and arts and crafts.
The Ocean Fun-atics series run from Monday to Friday. You can sign up for all five sessions, or just a few (see topic options below).
Daily topics:
- Monday – Rock pool animals
- Tuesday – Animal homes and habitats
- Wednesday – Turtles and tortoises
- Thursday – Sharks
- Friday – Wild animals and camouflage
Full blog: https://www.aquarium.co.za/blog/entry/ocean-funatics-course
Marine biobasics course:
This course will be a more in-depth look at most of the marine animal phyla, from single-celled protists, all the way to mammals, and an overview of marine algae, seaweeds and plants. Live sessions will build progressively from the simplest animals through to the most complex, thus enabling participants to build their biological knowledge and terminology in manageable steps.
Course details:
- Dates: 6 July to 5 August 2020
- Duration: Four weeks
- Format: Zoom sessions with our teachers and content on our e-learning platform
- Live sessions: 17h30 to 19h30 Mondays and Wednesdays
- Cost: R1 000 per person
- Age: 16 years and older
To register, please fill in this online form at this link.
Participants at a senior high school or first-year university level will find this a useful bridging course to tertiary Marine Biology. Anyone keen to expand their knowledge about ocean habitats and inhabitants will gain a good grounding in the founding principles and terminology of Marine Biology, thus giving them access to more advanced publications.
The broad overview of the entire marine animal kingdom will allow participants to be able to identify almost any marine animal to, at least, the phylum and, more often, class level. This will enable aspirant animal identifiers to accurately home in on a particular animal (or plant) far more quickly, when using marine guides.
Each two-hour session, with a break in the middle, will be facilitated by teachers from the Two Oceans Aquarium Education Foundation, using presentations and short video clips. Detailed, illustrated notes and longer video clips will be available on our online platform. There will be no formal assessments or course results, but participants will be expected to do a short quiz, in their own time, after each week’s presentations. A certificate of completion will be sent to you at the end of the course.
Full blog and more details: https://www.aquarium.co.za/blog/entry/marine-biobasics-course
Thetha isiXhosa – learn to have everyday conversations in another language:
The Two Oceans Aquarium Education Foundation is offering a course where you and your family will learn basic conversational isiXhosa for everyday situations.
Course details:
- Dates: 1 July to 27 July 2020
- Duration: Four weeks
- Format: Zoom sessions with our isiXhosa teachers
- Live sessions: 18h45 to 20h00 Mondays and Wednesdays
- Cost: R1 000 per family
- Ages: The whole family
To register, please fill in this online form.
The main purpose of this course is to encourage families to learn to speak isiXhosa to each other and to strangers they meet in their daily lives. We want to celebrate our differences and similarities as a nation, while embracing our social, cultural and language diversity. We also aim to build bridges that close our social and language barriers as a South African community. The course will include fun conversations, basic vocabulary, phrases and songs that will improve your Xhosa speaking ability when going to the shops, petrol station or when speaking to your colleagues and classmates
The course is designed to be flexible and teachers Thabo Sabeko and Wandiswa Jonga will include additional content based on the input from participants during the course.
Full blog: https://www.aquarium.co.za/blog/entry/thetha-isixhosa-course
Image credit: Instagram/ 2oceansaquarium
