Recipe for an Ocean

Coastal Ecology—Recipe for an Ocean

Summary: This activity will inspire students to brainstorm the components that make up an ocean community and introduce them to the concepts of food chains, energy transfer and food webs. The second part of the activity, designed for older students, challenges them to create a food web in relation to the habitat each animal lives in to further the lesson between interconnectedness of the living community and habitats in the system. This activity is most effective when used after a field experience or at the end of an ocean unit.

Concepts to teach: Food chains and webs, community interactions, interconnectedness

Goals: Students will understand the relationships among living things and between living things and their marine environment.

Standards:
3.2L.1, 4.2L.1, 5.2L.1, 6.2L.2

Specific Objectives:

  1. Students will be able to define the parts of and create a food chain from a list of organisms.
  2. Students will be able to define the parts of and create a food web from a list of organisms and food chains.
  3. Students will be able to describe the interdependence of a marine community in relationship to the organisms themselves and those living in different ecosystems.

Activity Links and Resources:

  • Summary of Recipe for an Ocean from the Oregon Coast Aquarium
  • The Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport has a variety of onsite lab classes, outreach programs, and lesson plans for Grades 3-5, including:
    • What’s for Lunch? (Gr. 1-3)—Introduction to marine food chains
    • Feeding Frenzy (Gr. 4-5)—Complex marine food webs that include humans
    • Fins, Flippers and Flukes (Gr. 4-5)—Marine mammal adaptations and ecological roles

Assessment:

  • Included in the Recipe for the Ocean lesson.
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Ocean Animal Adaptations

Coastal Habitats & Species—Ocean Animal Adaptations

Summary: This topic guide focuses on classroom and field trip activities that show students that the ocean is home to a variety of animal species, and each has structural and behavioral adaptations that help it survive in marine ecosystems.

Concepts to teach: Adaptation, marine ecosystems, evolution

Goals: The ocean supports a great diversity of life.
Animal species are adapted to environments.

Standards:
3.3S.2, 4.2L.1, 43S.2, 4.2L.1, 5.2L.1

Specific Objectives:

  1. Students identify the major natural history characteristics of a marine animal.
  2. Students describe four body structures and two behavioral characteristics of an organism that help it survive in a marine habitat.
  3. Students share their finding with others through an oral or written presentation.

Activity Links and Resources:

Assessment:

  • Students prepare a report on their findings of a particular marine animal, in which basic natural history characteristics are described and structural and behavioral adaptations identified.
  • Compare and contrast a marine organism with a terrestrial organism using a Venn diagram.
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Squid Dissection

Coastal Habitats & Species—Squid Dissection

Summary: Students will dissect a squid, learn about squid anatomy and adaptations, and then compare their dissected specimen to an octopus.

Concepts to teach: Squid anatomy and adaptations, Compare and Contrast

Goals: Students will investigate and discuss internal and external squid anatomy. Some features of the squid will be compared to similar features on an octopus.

Standards:
4.2L.1, 5.2L.1

Specific Objectives:

  1. Observe the external and internal anatomy of a cephalopod
  2. Compare and contrast tentacle designs of a squid and the arms of an octopus.
  3. Write your name in squid ink!
  4. Examine the squid’s eye.

Activity Links and Resources:

Assessment:

  • Worksheet included in the LaRosa dissection lesson plan.
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Growing Up in the Ocean

Coastal Habitats & Species—Growing Up in the Ocean

Summary: Most students are aware that plants and animals come in all shapes and sizes and many undergo metamorphosis during their life cycle. Marine invertebrates like sea stars, crabs and sea urchins have microscopic pelagic larval stages that are very different from their familiar adult forms. This activity explores the complex life cycles of marine invertebrates by learning about the life cycle of crab through observation, asking and answering questions as well as learning how to use microscopes. While learning about the life cycle, students are able to explore unique adaptations of marine invertebrates often seen in tidepools of Oregon.

Concepts to teach: Life stages, adaptations and survival

Goals: Students will explore and describe the life stages of crab and the similarities and differences between each body form.

Standards:
3.1L.1, 3.2L.1, 3.3S, 4.2L.1, 4.3S, 5.2L.1, 5.3S

Specific Objectives:

  1. Students will be able to define “larva” and “metamorphosis” and give 3 examples of marine larva found in Oregon’s ocean.
  2. Students will describe an adaptation of a young and adult crab and why that feature is suited to the habitat it lives in at that time as well as the function of that feature.
  3. Students will find and identify at least one similarity and one difference between the 3 different life stages of a crab.

Activity Links and Resources:

  • Growing up in the Ocean lesson plan from the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology
  • The Planet Plankton lesson from the NOAA Estuary Education website offers estuary-based middle school curriculum, but includes general lessons about the importance of plankton in marine invertebrate life cycles, including:
  • The Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport offers has a variety of on-site lab classes, outreach programs, and classroom lesson plans for Grades 3-5, including:
    • Plankton Investigation (Gr 3 and 4)—Students discover the world of plankton by using scientific tools to collect microscopic life from the Yaquina Bay, examine the external structures of plankton, and complete the life cycle of a local mystery plankton.
  • The Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education (C-MORE) has Plankton educational kits available in some areas in Oregon, including Lincoln County. Download complete lesson plans and resources, and/or check out a kit through the C-MORE website.

Assessment:

  • Worksheets included in the Growing up in the Ocean and The Great Plankton Race lesson plans.
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Tidepool Inquiry

Introduction—Tidepool Inquiry

Summary: These field activities introduce students of all ages to the intertidal habitats of rocky shores while safely exploring tidepools. Using guided inquiry and structured group investigation, students will observe species living in this diverse habitat to make hypothesis about adaptations and interactions that are occurring in the community.

Concepts to teach: Rocky shores, interactions and change, adaptations and survival, tidal cycles, community interactions, ecosystem balance.

Goals: Students will better understand the inhabitants of Oregon’s Rocky shores, by way of observation and guided exploration.

Standards:
4.1L.1, 4.2L.1, 4.3S.1, 4.3S.2, 5.1L.1, 5.2L1, 5.3S.1, 5.3S.2

Specific Objectives: By the end of this activity, students will be able to:

  1. Explore tidepools in a way that is safe for themselves and the habitat.
  2. Identify the dominant organisms in the tidepool ecosystem.
  3. Explain specific adaptations of species living in the rocky intertidal by making scientific hypothesis based on field observations.

Activity Links and Resources:

Assessment:

  • Students create a personal meaning map for tidepools, where they draw and label what they know about tidepools prior to the field visit. After the field visit, students add to their personal meaning maps new information that they learned from the trip. The post-trip contributions can be drawn on the same page as the pre-trip map in a different color pen, or the students may make an entirely new map from scratch. Evaluate pre- and post-trip contributions for detail and accuracy.
  • Create a food web using the animals discovered during the field experience.
  • Pre- and post-assessment ideas suggested in the Yaquina Head “SeaCrets of Tide Pools” lesson
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Beach Explorers

Introduction—Beach Explorers

Summary: This topic guide features three beach activities from the Surfrider Foundation. The first two activities introduce students to the vastness of Earth’s oceans by way of exploring global geography and calculating percentages. Students share in small groups about what they know and enjoy about visiting beaches and shorelines near the ocean, lakes and rivers and discuss what they may find when they visit the beach.

In Activity 3, Beach in a Bucket, “students work in small cooperative groups to explore a sandy beach (or, for those who cannot or choose not to conduct this activity at the beach, a simulated sandy beach in a plastic tub). Through a sorting activity, they discover that biotic (once-living) objects found on the sandy beach can be grouped into those that represent: evidence of plant life, evidence of animal life, and evidence of humans. They discover the differences between once-living (biotic) and never-living (abiotic) objects. Also introduced in this activity is the concept that sand is made up of tiny bits of virtually everything that can be found on the beach.”

Activity 4 shows students the value of using a field notebook to record data, observations and ideas while exploring outside. Students construct a small notebook and record their thoughts and findings from the unit through pictures and writing.

Concepts to teach: Marine and coastal ecosystems, sandy beaches, interconnections, cycles, productivity

Goals:

  • The world’s ocean covers most of our planet. Everywhere the ocean meets the land there is a shoreline or beach.
  • Objects found on the sandy beach can be grouped into evidence of: plant life, animal life, humans, and non-living material.
  • Sand is made up of tiny bits of everything that is found on the beach.

Standards:
3.2L.1, 4.2L.1, 5.2L.1, 3.2E.1, 4.2E.1, 5.2E.1

Specific Objectives:

  1. Students understand that the world’s oceans cover approximately 70% of the earth’s surface.
  2. Students can give examples of several living and non-living materials that could be found on a beach.

Activity Links and Resources:

  • Beach Explorers—Unit 1 from the Surfrider Foundation educational unit “Beachology” is designed for grades K-5 and includes four activities: Blue Planet, Beach Blanket Brainstorm, Beach in a Bucket, and Making an Explorer’s Field Book.
    • Activities 1 and 2 are especially well-suited as introductory activities
  • See the Surveying the Shoreline topic guide in the “Estuaries” focus area.

Assessment:

  • Use a KWL chart as recommended in the lesson plan for sharing student ideas and addressing misconceptions.
  • Create sorted lists of living and non-living items found on a beach. Students will have to decide how to categorize biotic items that are no longer alive (for example, shells).
  • Have students group their wrack and debris findings into their own categories they make up. Alternatively students may group their items according to what ecosystem they came from: watershed (driftwood, terrestrial plants), estuary (crab molts, eelgrass), ocean (kelp, various shells), mystery (plastic, glass, trash).
  • Share student field books with the teacher and classmates.
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Web of Life

Coastal Ecology—Web of Life

Summary: In this activity students will discover how the plants and animals of the estuary are connected to each other.

Concepts to teach: Interactions and change, balance, food chains, community interactions, interconnectedness.

Goals: Students will understand the interdependence of all living things in an estuarine ecosystem because of their shared food resources.

Standards:
3.2L.1, 4.2L.1, 5.2L.1

Specific Objectives:

  1. Students will collect information about various organisms in the estuary
  2. Create a simulated web of life using a ball of string
  3. Students will identify at least 1 of the following: producer, consumer (herbivore, omnivores & carnivores) and decomposers.

Activity Links and Resources:

Assessment:

  • Have students create their own Estuary web of life. Have them demonstrate their knowledge by including at least 1 producer, consumer and decomposer in their 6+ species web.
  • Compare estuarine food webs to freshwater food webs explored in Watersheds: Making the Connection topic guide
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Surveying the Shoreline

Coastal Ecology—Surveying the Shoreline

Summary: Wrack, the debris cast ashore, wash up along many tidally influence shores in Oregon and are often a main nutrient source for communities living along a shoreline habitat. The source of the wrack varies depending on the location, but time and again evidence of the watershed to ocean connection is visible along the shore. This activity can be adapted for classroom use by collecting wrack and using it inside or for field use depending on location, time availability as well as the presence of wrack at the field site. This activity is appropriate for estuarine shorelines as well as beaches and shorelines along the open coast.

Concepts to teach: Cycles, productivity, balance and interconnectedness.

Goals: Students will learn about the watershed-estuary-ocean connection by exploring and identifying shoreline wrack and identifying the organisms that live and depend on it.

Standards:
3.2L.1, 3.2E.1, 3.3S, 4.2L.1, 4.3S.2, 5.3S, 6.2E.1, 6.3S, 7.3S, 8.3S

Specific Objectives:

  1. Students will be able to identify wrack and how explain how it occurs onshore
  2. Students will collect data on the contents of the wrack and make a graphical representation of their findings
  3. Students will analyze their data and provide an explanation for the results
  4. Students will be able to define at least 2 species in the community that depend on the presence of wrack

Activity Links and Resources:

Assessment:

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Tidal Flat Exploration

Coastal Ecology—Tidal Flat Exploration

Summary: “A structured experience for students to investigate the life of the tidal flats of the estuary and explore the relationship between sediments, elevation, and the life beneath surface.”

Concepts to teach: Marine and Coastal Ecosystems, Habitats, Estuaries, English, Math

Goals: Students will be able to identify who lives in a watershed and explain how the watershed surrounding their school or hometown is connected to others.

Standards:
3.3S.2, 4.2L.1, 5.2L.1, 5.3S.1

Specific Objectives:

  1. Students will understand that the tide flats are covered twice a day by salty estuary water.
  2. Students will understand that the tide flats are made of sediment which may be sand, mud, or gravel.
  3. Students will understand that the type of sediment and the elevation determine what lives where.
  4. Students will understand that most animals burrow below the mud to stay wet, protected, and to feed on the tidewater.
  5. Students will understand that different animals have different types of adaptations for life in the mud.

Activity Links and Resources:

Assessment:

  • Student-authored field guides in the TIDES “Tidal Flats” lesson plan.
  • Students create a personal meaning map for tidal flats, where they draw and label what they expect to find in the mud. After the field visit, students add to their personal meaning maps new information that they learned from the trip. The post-trip contributions can be drawn on the same page as the pre-trip map in a different color pen, or the students may make an entirely new map from scratch. Discuss the scientific process of making predictions and then collecting data to test those predictions. Evaluate pre- and post-trip contributions for detail and accuracy.
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Salt Marsh Mania

Coastal Ecology—Salt Marsh Mania

Summary: In this activity, students will explore the range of diversity of salt marsh plants. As an introduction, students will learn how to draw and describe key characteristics of familiar plant samples in the classroom. In the field, students will work to observe salt marsh diversity through a variety of sampling techniques using the skills learned in the classroom. While botany, the study of plants, is a complex and expansive discipline, marshes are accessible and excellent starting points for students to begin to appreciate the subtle diversity of structure and the purpose of adaptation. The marsh is generally accessible without specialized footwear or boats. Marsh plants are typically low enough that the entire community of plants can be viewed and examined easily and a sampling transect and plots can be established without difficulty.

Concepts to teach: Marine and coastal ecosystems, salt marsh communities, cycles, adaptations, classification, data collection.

Goals: Students will discover the many different types of plants that have adapted to life in a tidal marsh through careful observation and discovery.

Standards:
4.2L.1, 5.2L.1, 4.2E.1, 3.3S.1, 3.3S.3, 5.3S.2, 5.3S.3

Specific Objectives:

  1. Students will be able to define: adaptation, characteristic and salt marsh
  2. Students will understand in a simple way to test diversity within one zone of the estuary.
  3. Students will gain experience making careful observations to distinguish physical difference and characteristics between species of marsh plants
  4. Students will understand how sampling a subset is used to make observations about a larger area.

Activity Links and Resources:

Assessment:

  • Examine student field journals and data graphs for completeness.
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