Tag Archives: Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School

Learning finances with a fish boat captain

Teacher Emily Nowack stood at the white board, marker in hand. At the direction of Captain Doug Feeney she scribbled down his business expenses – crew, insurance, permit fees, maintenance, the list went on. Students at the Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School did the math. They saw that Feeney’s profit was getting smaller as more expenses were subtracted. But what became clear was that transportation costs were taking a big bite out of Feeney’s take-home pay. >click to read<  12:46

Cape Cod Gray seals’ impact comes into focus for students that quantified the numbers

seals, cape codIn April, Aaron Knight flew a small plane along the shore of South Monomoy Island off the Chatham coast, taking an aerial video of a seal-lined beach below him. Among the many who saw the film on Facebook was Peter Trull, field naturalist, author and a seventh-grade science teacher at Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School in Harwich. Like everyone, he was amazed. One Facebook post quipped there appeared to be “trillions of seals.” Maybe not trillions, but the images did beg the question, how many? But one unanswered question, Trull said, is how many seals are there? “There’s no number,” he said. “There are estimates and some speculation, but no number.” In the aerial images, Trull saw an opportunity to find the answer. Trull has done many aerial counts of various species for NOAA, the Center for Coastal Studies, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service. Trull combined his expertise with a lesson for his students. Read the rest here 17:21