This blog is about something I don’t know anything about, which believe it or not is a first for me. But I’ve been seeing a lot of news and reviews for a new documentary on overfishing, and although I can’t get to see it at the moment, I’m fascinated by the campaign to make this film into a happening, “An Inconvenient Truth of the Oceans.”
Imagine an ocean without fish. Imagine your meals without seafood. Imagine the global consequences. This is the future if we do not stop, think and act. In the film we see firsthand the effects of our global love affair with fish as food.
It examines the imminent extinction of bluefin tuna, brought on by increasing western demand for sushi; the impact on marine life resulting in huge overpopulation of jellyfish; and the profound implications of a future world with no fish that would bring certain mass starvation. Filmed over two years, The End of the Line follows the investigative reporter Charles Clover as he confronts politicians and celebrity restaurateurs, who exhibit little regard for the damage they are doing to the oceans.
Overfishing – catching fish faster than their populations reproduce - is indeed a threat to the marine ecosystem, to the human food supply, and to the economic well-being of many regions. The UN Fisheries and Agriculture Organization’s 2008 report on the state of the world’s fisheries concluded that 75% of the fish stocks it monitors are fully exploited, overexploited, or depleted, and that sustainable management practices are lacking worldwide. The End of the Line explicitly aims to tackle this situation –
The film lays the responsibility squarely on consumers who innocently buy endangered fish, politicians who ignore the advice and pleas of scientists, fishermen who break quotas and fish illegally, and the global fishing industry that is slow to react to an impending disaster.
The End of the Line points to solutions that are simple and doable, but political will and activism are crucial to solve this international problem.
The End of the Line premiere at Sundance will also kick-off a global campaign for citizens to demand better marine policies. Leading international environmental organizations are lending their full support to the film.
The End of the Line will be released worldwide in 2009 using multiple formats and venues including theaters, broadcast and cable television networks, film festivals, online video campaigns, aquariums, museums and special screenings for environmental and educational organizations.
Now this is where it gets really interesting to me, this unabashed mingling of science and activism. I’ve found that I have to be very careful exposing introductory and non-majors students to subjective material. They often struggle to recognize the biases in advocacy science, or can be mislead into thinking that all scientific work comes with an agenda. I suspect though, that the blatancy of The End of the Line is exactly why it could work well as a teaching tool. From what I’ve seen, the film makes its points with a sledgehammer – that can open a lot of avenues for study. Students often react strongly to being hit over the head, and are motivated to dig deeper into a subject, to look for other ways of interpreting the data, and to debate the issues with their classmates.
The End of the Line will be released to theaters in selected cities on June 19th. In the meantime, you can poke into the story around the documentary at the sites below -
National Geographic has a page on the documentary, and links to their own articles and videos on overfishing
Babelgum is streaming segments of the film and additional videos online.
In addition, a number of science blogs have already reviewed the film. And the book of the same name by Charles Clover is widely available in bookstores and libraries.
Anyone seen The End of the Line? What did you think about it’s suitability for the classroom? I’ll blog again once I’ve watched.
Copyright 2012 Monterey Institute for Technology and Education. Click here for our
Terms of Use
and our
Privacy Policy.
*AP, Advanced Placement and Advanced Placement Program are registered trademarks of the College Board, which was not involved in the production of, and does not endorse, this content.
HippoCampus.org is a free, core academic web site that delivers rich multimedia content--videos, animations, and simulations--on general education subjects to middle-school and high-school teachers and college professors, and their students, free of charge. Teachers project HippoCampus content during classroom learning and assign it for computer labs and homework. Students use the site in the evenings for study and exam prep. Users do not need to register or log in to use the site.
As an open resource for personalized learning, HippoCampus.org was designed as part of a worldwide effort to improve access to quality education for everyone. HippoCampus is powered by The NROC Project, a non-profit, member-driven project focused on new models of digital content development, distribution, and use. NROC makes editorial and digital engineering investments in the content to prepare it for distribution by HippoCampus.
Sponsors
HippoCampus is made possible by the generous support of:
The HippoCampus website uses Adobe Flash. We recommend that you have Adobe Flash Player 7.0 or higher installed on your system. In addition, some of the Environmental Science content require Apple QuickTime version 6 or higher. Be sure to have QuickTime set to enable embedded Flash content (you will find this option in the QuickTime control panel under advanced settings).
Because HippoCampus contains multimedia instructional content, we recommend you have a high-speed Internet connection such as DSL or Cable Modem.
We are a non-profit organization and provide the content at our websites for self-improvement only as part of our mission. You cannot get credit for it since we are not a school.
You can email a comment or question directly to Help@HippoCampus.org, or you can click the "Comments and Questions" icon in the Media Window control bar. The icon looks like a small speech bubble.
While we understand that you may need assistance with your homework, we cannot provide the answers to your problems or individual assistance. We hope you can use our website as a tool to help you learn the subject matter so that you can find the answers.
We have also added links to several HippoCampus subject-specific study groups on the third-party OpenStudy.com web site, in the hope that students with additional questions can collaborate to learn and solve problems.
We correlate our content to a variety of widely used textbooks so that you may choose the books you wish. You do not need to buy any of the books mentioned.
More than half the use of HippoCampus occurs during classroom hours, when teachers go online to project topic lectures and show simulations launched from the HippoCampus site. Teachers can use the site as is, or can create custom playlists of topics in their custom HippoCampus page by creating a free user account. Just click the Log In link in the top-right corner of any HippoCampus page to get started. Further information can be found in the HippoCampus User's Guide.
HippoCampus is not a credit-granting organization, and does not monitor, grade, or give transcripts to anyone using the site. However, many home schooling families have used HippoCampus content to supplement or guide their home curriculum, and we welcome them as users.
HippoCampus is made possible by the members of NROC, the National Repository of Online Courses, and many NROC members do offer credit for courses that contain HippoCampus content. For a complete list of NROC members, see: http://www.montereyinstitute.org/nrocnetwork/members.php
Yes, although homeschoolers should realize that the content presented is not a complete course. The content is intended to have an instructor to provide supplemental assignments and instruction. Since there is no teacher available through HippoCampus, the parent must take the role of instructor.
We have done research to identify some very good wet lab resources for virtual schools that could also be used successfully by homeschoolers. Here are a few of the top options:
Smart Science® virtual labs are a complete science learning system with online assessments and reports, delivery of all course activities and student and curriculum tracking for current and prior terms. In 2007 the College Board approved AP science courses that incorporate Smart Science® AP labs as their lab components. Full sets of labs (20-30 labs per course) are offered for only 15$ a student at the AP level and 10$ a student at the non AP level.
The science lab kits and products offered by LabPaq (formerly Hands-On Labs, Inc.) were specifically designed and selected by practicing distance educators to serve the "At Home" science study markets. These kits are used with web courses, telecommunication courses, home-schooling programs, and all other forms of independent study. http://www.LabPaq.com
Students are not required to log in to HippoCampus.org, so there is no way to track student use from the public site. However, institutions that are members of the National Repository of Online Courses (NROC) have access to HippoCampus content through their school's learning management system, which can track use, assignments, and grades.
No. Our Terms of Use specify that HippoCampus is provided by the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education for personal enrichment and individual instructor use only. The unlicensed use of this content by educational organizations or commercial vendors is prohibited.
Unfortunately, there is no way to download the video from our website. As an individual user, however, you may create a custom HippoCampus page and then link to an individual topic. After you have created your custom page, there will be buttons in the upper right corner that allow you to view the text version (when available), bookmark, or link to the topic.
Yes, in multiple ways. First, there is a "maximize" button beneath the bottom left corner of the Media Window which will widen the screen. There is also a "hide column" button beneath the first column of content in the Browse Topics tab. These can be used simultaneously or independently. For some content, such as that from Khan Academy, a small button in the lower right corner of the media control bar allows the content to be shown full screen. For other content, such as Algebra I--An Open Course (2011), right-clicking the mouse over the video content will open a menu that offers Full Screen as an option.
Your screen resolution may be set too low. The Algebra course requires that your screen resolution be at 1024x768 or higher. Most of the other content requires a resolution of 600x800 or higher.
Closed captioning is not available, but an alternate text-based presentation of the same content is available by clicking the text icon in the title bar, above the multimedia. The presentation text was made available to specifically address this accessibility issue.
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act to requires Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. The law applies to all Federal agencies when they develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology. The educational resources provided at HippoCampus.org were not procured by, and are not made available through, a Federal agency, so the law is not applicable to the content at this website.
All the content we provide at HippoCampus is created by other educational institutions and contributed to us to distribute as part of our non-profit mission.
Due to the complexity of modifying the multimedia content, we cannot always correct errors within the video presentations. There is an Errata icon that appears with any topics in which a known error has been identified. We encourage our users to report any errors they discover so that we can notify everyone of the problem.
There is also an errata sheet available for some courses if you select "Launch a Full Course."
Use the "Comments and Questions" feature in the Media Window control bar. The icon looks like a small speech bubble, and allows you to send in a description of the error directly from the relevant piece of media. Or you can send an email to Help@HippoCampus.org.
Please describe the issue as precisely as possible.
If you provide your email address, we will inform you about the correction process, or ask any follow-up question necessary to clarify the report.
The tests that appear on our website are intended as open tests for self-assessment only. They are not intended to be secure tests since the answers are freely available at several websites.
There are answer keys available for the chapter tests but not for the review questions. The answer keys for the chapter tests are located as a link right under the chapter test link.
We know a lot of homeschoolers use HippoCampus. We are often asked if homeschoolers can study the content at HippoCampus and then just take and pass the AP exam.
HippoCampus courses were designed to address the AP College Board criteria. However, as with any teaching resource, they should not be considered a singular solution, but can be used as a good foundation for an AP teaching curriculum. The courses at HippoCampus have not currently been mapped to the CLEP and DANTE tests.
If you wish to receive college credit for taking an AP course, most colleges will require that the course have been approved by the College Board. Schools wishing to give their students AP credit must go through the AP audit process. The same is true for homeschoolers. The AP Course Ledger section below gives more information about the audit process.
AP Course Ledger
The AP Course Ledger is a comprehensive and public registry of all courses authorized to use the AP label on student transcripts. The Ledger is an annual and culminating product of the AP Course Audit, a process by which college faculty confirm that courses submitted by AP teachers and schools provide students with the essential elements of a college level experience. As an exclusively Web-based registry, the Ledger is published annually in November and updated weekly throughout the academic year to reflect newly authorized courses.
Here is a link to AP Audit information, (and you can find other links on this page to various other resources):
Yes, the AP Course Audit is only required for schools desiring to:
-- use the "AP" designation on students' transcripts
-- be listed in the ledger of authorized AP courses provided each fall to college and university admissions offices and the public.
Schools that simply offer the AP Exam as an opportunity for their students to earn college credit, without actually labeling the school's courses "AP" on students' transcripts, do not need to participate in the AP Course Audit, and can continue offering AP Exams to their students.
Our AP content is a good resource to help students prepare for AP exams. However, while we provide content resources, we do not have instructors who teach the courses. In order to be authorized by the College Board and put in the AP Course Ledger, an instructor must submit a syllabus for the course. While we do not have instructors who teach our courses, we do have NROC member schools that teach the courses for credit and they have been approved through the AP College Board. For a complete list of NROC members, see: http://www.montereyinstitute.org/nrocnetwork/members.php
*AP, Advanced Placement and Advanced Placement Program are registered trademarks of the College Board, which was not involved in the production of, and does not endorse, this content.
Contact
The NROC Project
Monterey Institute for Technology and Education P.O. Box 890 Marina, CA 93933
We encourage all academic institutions to participate in the collaborative development of HippoCampus content and efforts to improve online education. If your school is interested in joining our team, please contact Terri Rowenhorst, NROC Membership Director, 719-783-0804, trowenhorst@theNROCproject.
Textbook Publishers
Correlation to HippoCampus is a powerful competitive differentiator for your textbook. To have your book indexed and listed at HippoCampus, please contact Gary Lopez, Executive Director, 831-642-9459, glopez@montereyinstitute.org.
Advertisers
HippoCampus.org is an Open Educational Resource that delivers high-quality academic content in middle-school and high-school classrooms during the day, and offers students study and homework resources in the evenings. We welcome advertisers whose message is consistent with our educational mission and our non-profit, foundation-funded status. For details, visit the Student Messaging System page.
Explore NROC Network Membership for Institutional Use
The same great content available for free individual use at HippoCampus.org is also available for institutional use through the NROC Network. Membership fees sustain the operation of this non-profit endeavor to make quality educational content freely available to individual learners worldwide.
If you are interested in learning more about institutional use of the NROC Library within your school, district, or state, please complete our brief form below. An NROC staff member will be in touch with you directly.
