Attention Teachers!

Welcome to the Seamobile!
   Through the resources of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the generosity of the Maxwell H. Gluck Foundation, students can uncover some of the mysteries of the sea as they journey aboard the Seamobile. The Seamobile is a mobile classroom (housed in a tractor trailer) serving middle schools in the Los Angeles area that gives students the opportunity to learn about local ocean ecosystems in a simulated research submersible. Students become marine scientists and dive beneath the southern California coast, observing different habitats and collecting data on the different species that live there.

   The Seamobile CD-ROM recreates the investigation experienced by students on board the Seamobile. In addition to the Seamobile Mission, this disc also contains several resources that can enhance the student learning experience, including researcher notebooks, a glossary and supplemental classroom activities.

Additional Resources
   There are five different habitats that can be studied during the Seamobile investigation. We recommend that you divide the class into teams of 2 to 4 and assign each team one of the habitats. Researcher notebooks for each study site are available in PDF format. These notebooks guide students through the program, prompting them to record data and make hypotheses that help explain some of their findings.

   A glossary is also included (in PDF) as a quick reference to some of the terms that students may encounter during their investigation.

   Several classroom activities are also available here that help reinforce some of the concepts introduced during the Seamobile program. These lessons were developed for grades 6 to 8 and focus on a variety of topics, including classification, anatomy and ecology.

 Teaching tips have also been included to provide more details about how a Seamobile Exploration might be planned for the classroom. Content background on oceanography and marine science, suitable for teachers and students, can be accessed from this disc as well. We hope you and your students enjoy this journey to the strange and fascinating world beneath the sea.

Students are introduced to a common method of classification used by scientists. They will use this method to "identify" a collection of everyday objects.