I have just finished teaching snorkeling to students in the first and second years. Its my third year of teaching this popular recreational activity and I must say, it is a great unit for so many reasons. The main one is that the kids love it! I have to keep asking them to stop and get out of the pool at the end of the lesson. They could stay in the water for hours! In terms of the MYP, it is a great unit to explore Community and Service and of course Environments.
Meeting the needs of a wide range of ability levels is not a big issue with snorkeling. Stroke technique is still an integral part of each aquatics lesson and sometimes I split the class into ability levels and have the beginners swim and the advanced snorkel, then switch halfway during the lesson. I get to give more individualized stroke feedback to the group doing stroke development and also peer teaching, while I can set some problem solving tasks or station work for the snorkelers. The advanced swimmers can develop more advanced snorkeling techniques such as going deep to retrieve items off the bottom of the pool or playing ‘Octopush’ the underwater hockey game while the students that were ‘non-swimmers’ at the start of the unit enjoy the freedom of swimming without worrying about their breathing. They can still work on clearing skills in shallow water. The snorkeling becomes an individualized learning plan as students can choose the skills or activities they want to work on and the choice also keeps them motivated and focused.
