Students visiting the Aquarium as part of a grades 6-8 Structured School Program participate in activities that reinforce the concepts introduced in the curriculum. Students meet in the classroom for an introduction and then break up into three smaller groups that rotate between three activities, all based on the theme of watersheds.

Introduction
In the introduction to the 6-8 activities, students will discuss what watersheds are and how they connect all of the habitats represented in the Aquarium.

Classroom
Students will examine live animals and discuss how they are dependent on watersheds to survive and how they may be susceptible to contamination caused by human action.

The Galleries
Students conduct water quality tests on water samples taken from different aquatic habitats and use characteristics such as temperature and pH to determine where these water samples would be found in a watershed.

The Ocean Gallery
Students perform an activity representing a river collecting pollution as it flows through South Carolina from the mountains to the sea and discuss how pollution affects watersheds. Students will also discuss decomposition rates while discovering the positive outcomes of recycling.