Introduction—Welcome to the Estuary!

Summary: Estuaries are unique and often fragile coastal ecosystems that connect aquatic and marine ecosystems. This topic guide provides definitions and images that orient students and promote a sense of place and understanding.

Concepts to teach: Estuarine ecosystems and habitats, tidal cycles, productivity, ecosystem balance

Goals: Students understand components of an estuarine ecosystem, basic associated vocabulary, and the concept that watersheds connect to the ocean through estuaries.

Standards:
6.2L.2, H.2L.2, HS.15

Specific Objectives:

1. Students will be able to identify and describe, in simple terms, what an estuary is and what basic life zones make up an estuary
2. Students will be able to describe at least two physical factors that influence life forms in the estuary.
3. Students will be able to locate the major life zones and sources of estuary inputs on a map.

Activity Links and Resources:

• The TIDES “Welcome to the Estuary” lessons were developed by the South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve.
  • Comprehensive PowerPoint presentation with many visual images: Welcome to the Estuary
  • Narrative “A View from the Cabin“ by Tom Gaskill of SSNERR gives a written description of what it’s like to live on the estuary.
• Oregon Coast Quests
  • HMSC Nature Trail Quest—This self-guided place-based activity in Newport leads explorers on an interpretive walk of the beautiful HMSC Estuary Nature Trail.
  • Make a Quest or other interpretive guide that highlights important parts of an estuarine habitat.

Assessment:

• Post activity analysis and scoring guide included in the TIDES lesson plan.

Human Impacts—Who Dirtied the Water?

Summary: Who is responsible for pollution of water resources and the subsequent clean up? Students identify a variety of pollution sources though participating in a story about the progressive contamination of a model body of water. They recognize that once the water is contaminated, it is difficult to determine to what extent various participants are responsible for the problem, and it is difficult to clean up the mess.

The original source for the popular “Who Dirtied the Water?” activity is unknown, and many variations exist on the web with this title. This lesson can avoid inducing ecophobia by empowering students to identify reasonable solutions to the problem of water pollution, creating new rules that change the story, and by discussing the limits of models.

Concepts to teach: Pollution, responsibility, problem-solving, models

Goals: Determining the source of pollution and assigning responsibility for pollution impacts can be a complex process that requires the help of science and the cooperation of many stakeholders. Solutions for aquatic pollution include both pollution prevention and effective clean up technology.

Standards:
SS.08.GE.07, SS.08.SA.03

Specific Objectives:

1. Identify five distinctly different sources and vectors of pollution to a model body of water.
2. Engage in a facilitated discussion with peers about who is responsible for cleaning up the model body of water.
3. Create a model of a device that cleans the polluted water.
4. Devise new rules to prevent pollution of the water.

Activity Links and Resources:

• Who Dirtied the Water?—The original source for this popular activity is unknown, and many variations exist on the web with this title. This lesson can avoid inducing ecophobia by empowering students to identify reasonable solutions to the problem of water pollution, creating new rules that change the story, and by discussing the limits of models.
  • Consider modifying the “story” to represent your local waters and types pollution common to your area.
  • Clean Water: Is it Drinkable?—The second part of the lesson plan asks students to create a filtration system to remove the contaminants from the water. Since the filters will be unlikely to clean up the water completely, follow this exercise with a discussion about the limits of models.
  • New Rules—Have students devise new rules for the discharge of pollutants, and perform the story again to see if the water is any less polluted by the end. Discuss how the modifications may lead to new problems (for example, lack of fund to build a water treatment plant, toxins seeping out of a landfill, etc)
• A similar write up of Who Dirtied the Water comes from the Museum of Science and Industry in Illinois.

Assessment:

• Identify reasonable solutions to the problem of water pollution in the activity. Create new rules and see how the story changes as a result of those rules (for better or for worse).
• Discuss the limitations of models, why we use models, and how the activity does and does not accurately reflect a real situation.

Place—Words from the Ocean

Summary: No matter how far away we might live from the beach, we are culturally connected to the ocean and its resources. Students discover how some common English words and phrases can be tied to maritime history.

Concepts to teach: Language arts, social studies

Goals: Students recognize how the ocean’s prominence in our culture has shaped our language.

Standards:
EL.06.RE.12, EL.07.RE.12, EL.08.RE.12

Specific Objectives:

1. Identify how the modern meaning of several words has changed from the sense they originally had in maritime cultures.
2. Construct hypotheses as to the original, ocean-related meaning of several everyday words.

Activity Links and Resources:

• Two resources from Smithsonian’s Ocean Planet exhibition investigate how the ocean has influenced our language:
  • Words from the Ocean—This lesson plan asks student groups to guess the original meanings of several modern words. A worksheet and teacher answer key is provided.
  • Nautical Sayings—A list of eight common sayings and a description of their nautical roots.

Assessment:

• Use worksheet to try to figure out how the original meaning of each word in the following list is connected to the sea and write your ideas in the space provided.
• Pick one word and create a THEN and NOW poster contrasting the original meaning of a word or phrase with its modern meaning.

Human Impacts—You’re Excluded

Summary: Although fishing gear may be designed to catch a particular species of marketable fish, sometimes other species also accidentally get caught. Through hands on simulation, students explore how fishing trawls may be modified to reduce bycatch.

Concepts to teach: Bycatch, excluder, trawl, iterative, efficiency, selectivity, engineering design

Goals: To deal with the unwanted problems associated with bycatch, the fishing industry must change their gear and/or their practices. Students design models of excluder devices to solve this real-world problem.

Standards:
S3.4D.1
S4.4D.1, S4.4D.2
S5.4D.1, S5.4D.2

Specific Objectives:

1. Define “bycatch” and how it affects the fishing industry and the environment.
2. Describe how a fishing trawl works to catch fish.
3. Create and demonstrate how a model “excluder” reduces bycatch.

Activity Links and Resources:

• You’re Excluded—In this classroom lesson plan from Oregon Sea Grant, students learn about the problem of bycatch, and design their own model bycatch excluder devices.
• See a video of a bycatch excluder device in action.
• The Science for Sustainable Fisheries exhibit at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport has models of various fishing vessels and excluder gear.
• The Washington-based Derelict Fishing Gear project on the Northwest Straits website describes stewardship projects designed to reduce the impacts of derelict gear.

Assessment:

• Discussion Questions included in the You’re Excluded curriculum.