I find this story to be interesting for several reasons. First, the mental picture I have of these toys washing overboard and floating around the world for the past 15 years makes me chuckle. Second, our children think this story is hysterical. Third, it’s cool that technology has made it possible to track these floatees as they’ve trekked the oceans of the world.
I know of examples of students tracking the migration patterns of whales, severe weather, earthquakes, sea turtles, sports teams, things in space, etc. but these rubber ducks bring an entirely new element of fun to such an activity.
What are your thoughts about this?
This is a cool story that could definitely teach geography and science principles!
I can’t believe that these little yellow duckies “siblings” that I use to have floating in my bath tube are now floating in the ocean and could actually continuing floating for many more years to come.
It makes me wonder how many of those poor duckies were a shark’s unsatisfying lunch!
We did something similar to this in grade school. Each student wrote a note, and the entire class put the notes in a bottle. Our teacher, on a vacation to Florida, threw the bottle into the ocean. Unfortunately, we never heard anything back.
This is so funny and cute! It has such great kid appeal as well! All kids should have a rubber ducky… adults, too! 🙂
Rubber Duckie I’m awfully fond of you. I guess Ernie and Bert would be amazed. It is amazing how we can excite students with current events and allow them to engage in a real life situation.
I wonder what other stuff is similarly traveling ’round the world atop oceanic currents…
What an interesting story. We did a project similar to this in elementary school where we wrote messages on cards and sent the up with balloons. We included the schools information’s so we could find out where they went. I could only have imagined if they would have had tracking devices on them.
I think this story is hilarious, yet it also offers a wonderful example of real-life projects, such as tracking objects (UPS, storms, etc.). One of the goals of education is to make learning fun! This definitely will get students to be interested in learning, and also make the connection that the things being learned in school are applicable to real-life!
The saga of the great rubber ducky migration is a very fascinating one. It’s great to see that an accidental drop off a ship can make these ducks world icons. Aside from the humorous and fun side of it, this story reaches scientific levels. Seeing the ducks change color and having other “travel side-effects” can demonstrate the power of current, sun, and salt water. The random migration is also fascinating. Animal migration, like that of the whales is a precise and planned out path. The ducks don’t have that option; they cast reason into the wind and follow the currents. These could end up being even for famous and watched then Ernie’s rubber ducky on Sesame Street.