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EDUCATION

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EDUCATION MENU

CCMI’s Education team is pleased to offer the following resources to educators to use in the classroom. Please contact us if you would like more information about the educational opportunities available at CCMI for you and your students.

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2026 Reefs Go Live

2025 Reefs Go Live

2024 Reefs Go Live

2023 Reefs Go Live

Reefs Go Live 2023 Booklet (all episodes)

June 2 – Reef Resiliency and Restoration

Lesson Plan

Student Worksheets

Student Worksheets (Teacher’s Version)

June 8 – World Ocean Day: 25 Years of Coral Reef Research at CCMI

Please note, all broadcasts begin at 10 am local time in the Cayman Islands (UTC -5). 

2022 Reefs Go Live

2021 Reefs Go Live

These modules are 3-5 minute video-based, mini-module lessons from CCMI that help educators deliver STEM curriculum to their year 4-6 students. Each mini-module is accompanied by a lesson plan that enhances the sharing of the information to the students and aims to increase retention of important content from Reefs Go Live.

Symbiotic Relationships Explained: Mutualism

This mini-module focuses on the Cayman Islands – Science National Curriculum objective of learning about symbiotic relationships, specifically mutualism.

LESSON PLAN: Symbiosis – Mutualism

Symbiotic Relationships Explained: Commensalism

This mini-module focuses on the Cayman Islands – Science National Curriculum objective of learning about symbiotic relationships, specifically commensalism.

LESSON PLAN: Symbiosis – Commensalism

Symbiotic Relationships Explained: Parasitism

This mini-module focuses on the Cayman Islands – Science National Curriculum objective of learning about symbiotic relationships, specifically parasitism.

LESSON PLAN: Symbiosis – Parasitism

How Do Scientists Grow Corals? – Frame Cleaning

This mini-module focuses on the Cayman Islands – Science National Curriculum objective of learning about what plants and animals need to grow, how they feed, how they move, use their senses, and the similarities and differences between them. Learn all about this through the live underwater examples of stony corals and their mutualistic, symbiotic relationship with an algae living inside of them.

LESSON PLAN: How do Scientists Grow Coral – Frame Cleaning

How Do Scientists Grow Corals? – Measuring Corals

This mini-module focuses on the Cayman Islands – Science National Curriculum objective of learning about what plants and animals need to grow, how they feed, how they move, use their senses, and the similarities and differences between these types of organisms. This module also meets the learning objectives of the STEM, year 4-6 mathematics requirement of using basic tools to take a length measurement, adding each of those measurements together, and forming a summation or total. Learn all of this through the live underwater examples of stony corals and their mutualistic, symbiotic relationship with an algae living inside of them.

LESSON PLAN: How do Scientists Grow Coral – Measuring Coral

How Do Scientists Grow Corals? – Outplanting

This mini-module focuses on the Cayman Islands – Science National Curriculum objective of learning about what plants and animals need to grow, how they feed, how they move, use their senses, and the similarities and differences between them. Learn all of this through the live underwater examples of outplanting stony corals back onto the natural coral reef ecosystem. (This video is 9-minutes long.)

LESSON PLAN: How do Scientists Grow Coral – Outplanting Coral

CCMI has created video-based resources to train and prepare educators to deliver STEM curriculum to their year 4-6 students. Each training video is accompanied by a lesson plan that enhances the sharing of the information to the students and aims to increase retention of important content from Reefs Go Live.

Teacher Training Video: Coral Bleaching

This experiment introduces coral bleaching and how it can have a negative impact on coral reef ecosystems. Teachers will be guided through how to undertake a simple coral bleaching experiment with their students by a CCMI educator. Background information on coral bleaching and its causes will also be provided in the training video.

LESSON PLAN: Coral Bleaching

Teacher Training Video: Lionfish Dissection

This experiment introduces the concept of an invasive species, using lionfish in the Caribbean as an example, and explains how invasive species can have negative impacts in an ecosystem. Teachers will be guided through how to undertake a simple lionfish dissection with their students by a CCMI educator. Background information on invasive species, the causes of the lionfish invasion in the Caribbean and lionfish biology are also provided. Teachers undertaking this experiment are encouraged to follow up with a class discussion focusing on what other invasive species are found in the Cayman Islands and how we can reduce their population.

LESSON PLAN: Lionfish Dissection

Teacher Training: Ocean Acidification

This experiment introduces ocean acidification and how it can negatively impact marine organisms. Teachers will be guided through conducting a simple ocean acidification experiment with their students by a CCMI educator. Background information on ocean acidification will also be provided in the training video. Teachers undertaking this experiment are encouraged to follow up with further experiments to determine the pH of common solutions to allow students to have a greater understanding of the pH scale.

LESSON PLAN: Ocean Acidification

These lesson plans complement CCMI’s Reefs Go Live programmes (2019-2020), which are aligned with the Science National Curriculum objective for Years 4, 5, and 6 in the Cayman Islands government schools. Participation in the live dive broadcasts and use of these lessons is open to all teachers in Cayman, regardless of age and subject matter taught. In fact, Reefs Go Live offers great cross-curricular opportunities to engage students in coral reefs as a real-life platform for teaching in other subject areas such as math and writing. All episodes are about 45 min in length. Episodes can be found here.

lesson plans

activity sheets

fact sheets

lesson slides

Students learning about Caribbean algae and herbivorous fish identification can refer to the two education module slide decks below on algae and herbivorous fish in Little Cayman. These have been created by CCMI researchers and educators based upon the Darwin Initiative-supported project on key herbivores in the Cayman Islands. These education modules also air with the Reefs Go Live video, activity sheets, and fact sheets on herbivory. Learn more about that project here.