Ocean Studies Charter School offers a rigorous academic program, producing students who meet or exceed the State Standards in English, Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies. While nurturing curiosity, creativity, and imagination, we encourage children to become independent, responsible, and self-motivated learners.
Montessori is a method of education that is based on hands-on and collaborative learning. Our blended classrooms allow children to make creative choices in their learning with both State and Montessori Certified teachers helping guide the process.
With practice, perseverance, and effort, children have limitless potential to learn and grow. We work to create an environment that encourages children to tackle challenges unconcerned with making mistakes or being embarrassed, focusing on the process of growth.
Experiential learning is personal and effective in nature, influencing both feelings and emotions as well as enhancing knowledge and skills. It goes beyond classroom learning and ensures that there is high level of retention.
Our students participate in projects that better serve our environmental community. These projects have many positive effects on students, such as helping them to develop skills, making contacts, and allowing them to improve the quality of life of others.
Students work with professional photographers to learn how to properly use digital cameras beginning in kindergarten. Photography is then a way for students to demonstrate content knowledge in various ways as the student progresses each year and culminates with an exhibit open to the community.
As our program expands each year, we value the importance of exposing our students to various cultures, places, scientific observations and travel opportunities. This past year, our 5th grade class spent a week in Bocas del Toro, Panama to participate in biological studies at the Institute of Tropical Ecology and Conservation.
Ocean Studies uses place based education to engage students in learning that allows discovery, inquiry, and collaboration. Students work in the unique and beautiful Florida Keys environment to discover connections between the real world and Florida State Standards specifically in the area of marine science.
Research has shown that the best predictor of future success is a positive sense of self-esteem. Our programs, based on self-directed, noncompetitive activities, help children develop strong self-images and the confidence to face challenges and change with optimism.
Our teachers prepare the classroom environment in an ordered arrangement with carefully chosen, hands-on, sequential learning materials, designed to be challenging, developmentally appropriate, and aesthetically appealing. Used in the noncompetitive classroom, the materials allow each child to develop at his/her individual rate.
The years between five and eleven are prime for establishing an academic foundation and are also the years when a child learns the ground rules of human behavior most easily. OSCS takes advantage of these years to help a child prepare to take his/her place in society through the acquisition of good study habits, responsible citizenship and manners.
While our program stresses academic achievement, the atmosphere minimizes stress and competition and accentuates each child’s strengths and successes through cooperative learning.
The curriculum plan covers reading, writing, spelling, grammar, handwriting, Montessori mathematics, math, geometry, geography, cultural geography, botany, zoology, art, physical education, history, marine science, and research skills all aligned with the Florida B.E.S.T. Standards and STEAM Curriculum. Our unique marine science curriculum serves as a catalyst for our students to become engaged and excited about learning. Each class has a weekly field lab that connects and integrates the lesson plans with real-life experience. The children have the benefit of experiencing our near and off shore waters by boat, kayak or paddle boards. We use the field labs for research, to journal, and developing investigative techniques. The students will be asked to think and write about their experiences as they are experiencing the outdoors.
At OSCS, we take advantage of our unique surroundings and use them as a classroom as well. Our curriculum has sparked interest both in and outside the school resulting in community outreach and independent research at home. We see the students grow with inquiring questions and better understandings of the local environment. Each classroom has two certified or credentialed teachers and the school has a full marine science teacher who works with small groups on projects continuously throughout the day. The school has a science lab and a media equipment in each classroom room. The science lab provides a hands-on, tactile experience for learning science. The lab houses various marine environments and specimens of which the students take care. Equipped with microscopes and other scientific tools, this lab provides for experimenting, studying, charting, practicing the scientific method, and the investigative reporting of data. Each classroom contains computers, tablets, access to media streaming, and a marine science library.
