Our Ocean Portal Educators’ Corner provides you with activities, lessons and educational resources to bring the ocean to life for your students. We have collected top resources from our collaborators to provide you with teacher-tested, ocean science materials for your classroom. We hope these resources, along with the rich experience of the Ocean Portal, will help you inspire the next generation of ocean stewards.
Featured Lesson Plans
Keeping Watch on Coral Reefs
Students learn why coral reefs are important, and what can be done to protect them from major threats.
Long Live the Sharks and Rays
Students will learn about adaptations that have helped sharks and rays survive. Students will explore similarities and differences between sharks, rays and other fish and that different types of sharks and rays have different temperaments and diets and that some of the largest sharks and rays are the most gentle.
Focus on Farmer Fish
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.
Search Lesson Plans
Find lessons/activities by topic, title or grade levels. Sort by newest or alphabetically. Lessons were developed by ocean science and education organizations like NOAA, COSEE, and NMEA to help you bring the ocean to your classroom.
Gulf of Mexico Curriculum: Deep Sea to Coast Connectivity
DEEP-C
Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale Activity Book
NOAA National Marine Sanctuary Program/State of Hawaii
This book is filled with activities about the humpback whales of the Hawaiian Islands Humpback National Marine Sanctuary, with information about whale identification, migration, behavior, and information on cetaceans in general.
How do Humpback Whales Feed?
NOAA
The activity covers feeding behaviors of humpback whales. It also teaches how baleen whales differ from toothed whales.
In Hot Water
Moorea Coral Reef LTER Education
This lesson combines Life Science and Investigation State Standards as it builds on the MCR LTER Connected Ecosystems lesson. Students will explore the concepts of living and nonliving components that make up an ecosystem by looking at how temperature determines the ranges of kelp and coral. Students will incorporate reasoning skills as they discuss kelp and coral temperature ranges, using the In Hot Water PowerPoint, then construct and interpret graphs of real yearly temperature data collected by the MCR LTER.
In Search of the Giant Squid
Smithsonian Institution
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.
Keeping Watch on Coral Reefs
NOAA Ocean Service
Students learn why coral reefs are important, and what can be done to protect them from major threats.
Light at the Bottom of the Deep Dark Ocean
NOAA Ocean Explorer
Students will be able to list the various adaptations that enable deep-sea fishes to survive; explain how bioluminescence helps deep-sea fish respond to food predator and reproductive pressures in their environments; explore how the structure of an appendage helps determine and utilize its function; describe how deepwater organisms respond to their dark environment.
Light at the End of the Deep, Dark Ocean
DEEPEND
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.
Light in the Deep
Deepend
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.
Marine Environments
Deepend
A series of lesson plans that help students understand the properties of the deep sea including hydrostatic pressure and ocean zones.