Educators' Corner

Students will demonstrate the different methods used to clean up after an oil spill and gain an understanding of the difficulties that are encountered. 

In this two-part lesson, students will compare and contrast the adaptive strategies of branching coral and mounding coral through participation in an interactive PowerPoint and a hands-on lab activity. Students complete a note-taking guide during the PowerPoint that provides background information to be used during the lab. In the lab activity, teams of 4 students construct different corals out of paper and test the design stability against physical disturbance.

Students will be able design physical structures to build a coral that is adapted to environmental conditions within the classroom. After construction, students will be able to communicate about the successful components of their design in terms of environmental factor influence.

This lesson introduces the idea of interrelationships among organisms and how these could help them persist in a coral reef ecosystem. Students will learn about symbiotic relationships, with mutualism among coral and zooxanthellae as the model organisms in the first lesson and then moving on to parasitism and mutualism. Topics include the transfer of energy and matter through the processes of photosynthesis and respiration. These concepts are approached through the marine environment, rather than the terrestrial environment, which allows most students to take a step out of their comfort zone. Teaching these concepts with examples from the coral reef ecosystem is also a great way to incorporate ocean literacy into the classroom.

This lesson works well as an introduction or review of these processes. Please implement additional classroom activities that will complement the concepts discussed in this unit. This unit was written primarily for seventh graders, but adjustments can be made to fit any grade level.

Join Ocean Portal Editor-in-Chief Emily Frost and museum educators from the National Museum of Natural History as they guide you through the Ocean Portal website, exploring a multitude of digital assets including vetted scientific information, interactive content, and education resources.

In this two part lesson, students gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between environmental factors and organism adaptations through a focused study on a specific coral reef denizen—the personable farmerfish. Students first take part in an interactive PowerPoint presentation to gain background knowledge and then apply learned concepts by participating in a board game.

In this series of lessons, worksheets, and activities, students will get acquainted with the habits, biology, and range of the giant squid. Students will understand the challenges in finding a “relatively small” giant squid within a vast and deep habitat and will also learn about the ever-improving technological resources needed to find a live giant squid.

Students will experience the impact of bioluminescence on finding food and finding prey in the ocean. Students will be able to describe the positive and negative values of being able to produce light. 

How are deep sea animals adapted to their environment? Students will explore one camouflage strategy of deep sea animals through an in-depth examination of light properties in ocean waters.

A series of lesson plans that help students understand the properties of the deep sea including hydrostatic pressure and ocean zones.