BioMara (the Sustainable Fuels from Marine Biomass
project) is a research project that aims to demonstrate whether
biofuels can be produced from marine biomass (algae).
This is an incredibly important subject, as governments all over
the world are looking for alternatives to using oil and gas from
fossil fuels.
To help schools, the BioMara project has
produced a range of teaching materials for primary schools. The
look at algae and how energy can be produced from them.
The materials include information about seaweeds (also called
macroalgae) and microalgae (also called phytoplankton).
There are six lesson plans, identification information for
seaweeds and a poster. You can either download these separately or
in one. Hard copies were sent to 900 schools across the three
regions.
Click here to
download the entire BioMara teaching resource: Energy from Marine
Algae (30.3MB)
Information for teachers
Each lesson consists of a content section and an activity
section. The content section provides the background knowledge for
the teacher. The activity section comprises of a brief description
of the lesson, learning outcomes and a variety of activities that
may be used, such as written, pictorial, interactive and
experimental activities. The learning outcomes are assessed in each
lesson by the final activity. The materials may be adapted to suit
the ability of the class. The Irish, Northern Irish and Scottish
curricula (as of 2012) were used in the design of the activity
sections.
The teaching materials are colour coded:
- A yellow band identifies the content pages
- A blue band identifies the activity section
- A red band identifies activities
- A green band identifies answer sheets
Energy from Marine Algae: BioMara teaching
materials
- Lesson 1: What
are algae?
- Lesson 2: How
do algae grow?
- Lesson
3: Algae and their environment
- Lesson
4: Pollution and algae
- Lesson 5: The uses of
algae
- Lesson 6: How
algae can be used to produce biofuel
- Macroalgae
identification
- Scientific
investigation sheet
- Definitions:
busting jargon
- Poster
This resource was designed, written and compiled by Anna Marie
Sherry and illustrated by Brian Fitzgerald.
Please let us know what you think of the resources: Anuschka.Miller@sams.ac.uk