The Hydrous - Learn and care about the ocean
Category: Bicycler
Introduction:
“How can you care about something that you don’t see or experience?” The CEO of The Hydrous Erika Woolsey throws this question to her audience during her presentation with the National Geographic Society.
Sustainability is a hot, important topic your child might truly be interested in and care about once they understand the ideas around it. However, it is truly hard for them to relate to until they see, touch, experience, and learn about sustainability concepts. The Hydrous wants to educate students about the underwater ecosystem, especially coral reefs, by experiencing it themselves.
The Hydrous is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization on a mission to create open access oceans. Hydrous develops and provides free learning content and participation in various events with partners like National Geographic to raise awareness and increase education around the marine ecosystem and how we can help keep the oceans alive in our precious world.
There are 3 main ways to explore underwater with The Hydrous:
Check out The Hydrous learning materials and learn all about the underwater world
Hydrous provides free learning materials like Learning Activities PDF, and Immerse cards for learning activities with children at home or at school. You can find the whole list of learning materials here.
Check out VR content and experience what it’s like to be underwater without having to hold your breath! (Available on the Oculus store, HTC Viveport, Samsung VR .)
If you don’t have a VR headset, don’t worry. You can also experience the same underwater experience by visiting National Geographic’s YouTube. You can simply rotate the screen of your smartphone to look around while you are playing the YouTube video, or use the navigation on the left top corner if you are viewing the content from the desktop.
Snapshot of National Geographic YouTube
STEAMED Playground is also preparing a workshop with them, stay tuned! And make sure you follow Hydrous for other future events.
Discussion points while playing with The Hydrous material:
The Hydrous’s Learning Activities PDF has a great list of discussion points. . We highly recommend making your way through this PDF with your child. The Hydrous has designed a step by stop experience with discussion points, as well as recommendations for other helpful materials.
Snapshot of Learning Activities PDF page
Plus points:
Erika Woolsey, The CEO of The Hydrous, is a marine biologist who has been studying and exploring coral reefs around the world for over 15 years, with a particular focus on how rising ocean temperatures affect coral populations. They have team members with an international community of scientists, divers, designers, filmmakers, and technologists who love the ocean. It is an organization that has been built with great people for a great cause. The Hydrous’s content is very reliable and innovative.
The Hydrous is introducing learning materials with various formats from VR experience to 3D printable coral model. If your child is enthusiastic about learning by experiencing, they are a great organization to follow and check out!
Recommended follow up activities:
Visiting aquarium
Scuba diving
Cleaning up the beach
Watching Behind the scenes - Great Barrier Reef on Netflix
