Students at Morrison School are hard at work on their science project.

The United Nations has declared 1998 the Year of the Ocean. Morrison Elementary will endeavor to foster the U.N.'s wishes of making the public more aware of the importance of the oceans in our lives.

Using the study of oceanography we will increase our students' understanding of the basic principles of the chemistry of water and the changing habitat of the seashore. Students' knowledge will be increased and evaluated using many performance assessments that will be put together for display at The Franklin Institute. Samples of work from various age groups will be showcased.

The main part of the presentation will be a walk-through aquarium displaying living and nonliving features of the ocean. On exiting, there will be a game. A marina of boats will be created by ESL students representing the many countries from which our population has come.

The younger children will go to the NJ State Aquarium, while a group of eighth graders will attend a field trip to the New Jersey shore. Specimens will be brought back for microscopic and chemical testing.

The older children will develop games testing oceanography facts. There will also be a presentation of Flood Evacuation Suitcase Simulations. We will contemplate the future possibility of life on or under the sea. There will be a display of inventions to help preserve our oceans and other water resources with possibly some models of future habitats.

An area of hands-on display, manned by our students, will include activities like sink and float, buoyancy, and sand microscopic observation.

Submitted by Sheila Appel and Mabel Mitchell