Press Releases

ALEXANDRIA, VA (April 21, 2010) –The Take Me Fishing™ campaign and Discovery Education announce the launch of Explore the Blue, an online initiative encouraging youth participation in on-the-water activities and aquatic conservation efforts.

Explore the Blue is a new resource empowering teachers and parents to engage students in a dialogue about the importance of outdoor recreational activities, such as boating and fishing, and the value of clean and healthy natural resources. The rich, interactive materials help students explore the world of outdoor recreation through exciting, hands-on activities. Through this initiative, students experience the magic of being on the water with family and friends, while learning about the importance of conservation efforts at the same time.

 Just in time for the spring season, the first materials from Explore the Blue includes activities educators can share with parents to continue the learning process over the summer months. 

These activities include:

• Model boat building exercises that teach valuable lessons about buoyancy, water displacement, surface area, and design;
• Research projects that help students inventory plants, animals and inorganic matter they may find in and around a local body of water;
• Journal writing exercises that encourage children to record descriptions of the fish they observe, notes about the weather, and any other thoughts, ideas or observations they have about their day on the water; and
• Map reading activities that support parent-student dialogues on animal habitats.

In late summer 2010, the Take Me Fishing campaign and Discovery Education will add additional instructional materials designed specifically for classroom use by educators.  These materials will include a robust collection of cross-curricular lesson plans, videos, multimedia content, activities and worksheets aligned to state education standards. In addition, Take Me Fishing and Discovery Education will launch an interactive game for students that will provide them with the tools to develop and care for their own ecosystem, as well as a digital essay contest encouraging students to document their fishing and boating experiences through video and/or digital photos. 

“Explore the Blue is a fantastic tool educators can use to help students understand the value of outdoor activities and the natural world around us,” said Recreational Boating & Fishing Foundation (RBFF) President & CEO Frank Peterson. “Together, Discovery Education and our national Take Me Fishing campaign can leverage the technology popular with today’s students to grow participation in outdoor recreation and improve appreciation of our nation’s beautiful natural resources.”

For more information on the Explore the Blue initiative, visit discoveryeducation.com/exploretheblue.

About RBFF
RBFF is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to increase participation in recreational angling and boating, thereby protecting and restoring the nation’s aquatic natural resources. RBFF helps people discover, share and protect the legacy of boating and fishing through national outreach programs including the Take Me Fishing™ campaign and Anglers’ Legacy™.

About Discovery Education
Discovery Communications (NASDAQ: DISCA, DISCB, DISCK) revolutionized television with Discovery Channel and is now transforming classrooms through Discovery Education.  Powered by the number one nonfiction media company in the world, Discovery Education combines scientifically proven, standards-based digital media and a dynamic user community in order to empower teachers to improve student achievement. Already, more than half of all U.S. schools access Discovery Education digital services.  Explore the future of education at www.discoveryeducation.com.

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