Educators' Corner

This activity is meant to provide students with an understanding of how microbes play a role in the climate system, from the formation of the atmosphere to current climate dynamics to the role of microbes in climate change. This activity can be done within a unit on microbes, microbial oceanography or as a stand-alone activity connected to climate change. The activity is meant to be completed in one class period (60-minute minimum) but could be extended.

Food webs demonstrate complex feeding relationships among species in an ecosystem by combining several food chains. Scientists use food webs to demonstrate the fragile and interconnected nature of an ecosystem. This activity demonstrated the complexity of a food web and what can happen when one component of a food web is altered.

This lesson plan develops concepts on food webs and ecological relationships, giving special attention to microorganisms and Chesapeake Bay species and dynamics. Students will conduct investigations, generate their own data and find out more about species they constantly see!

This middle school science curriculum contains five lesson plans related to ocean modeling, including the fields of biogeochemistry, fluid dynamics, and microbiology.

This lesson is created to stress the idea of interrelationships among organisms and how this can effect the surrounding environment. This lesson also goes step by step through the scientific approach to developing and implementing a scientific research study. Students are expected to write their own ideas about the best way to investigate the scientific questions provided, and compare their ideas to those of the actual researcher.

Students will study and replicate a model of the factors affecting fisheries populations in the Chesapeake Bay (or any other bay). Through a game they will investigate how decisions by watermen, recreational fisherpeople, and lawmakers influence and are influenced by economics and the abundance or scarcity of fish and shellfish stocks.

This group of lesson plans focuses on primary production in the ocean via photosynthesizers, like plankton and algae. Students will learn what factors limit primary productivity in the ocean and about other ways ocean organisms produce energy (i.e. chemosynthesis). 

The goal of this activity is to get students thinking about oil in the ocean, and in particular about the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the challenging cleanup efforts. Each pair of students will have a water-filled tray to represent the Gulf of Mexico and a set of materials to respond to the simulated oil spill.

This activity is useful for a wide range of ages and works well in a camp or classroom setting. This challenge, including introduction, hands-on activity, and discussion, takes about 1 hour.

Along the East Coast of the United States, two diseases can cause significant damage to growing oysters and in some cases even kill them. In this lesson plan, students will use data to determine whether water temperature, oyster size, or time of planting determines whether a young oyster becomes ill with disease.  

This activity is a fun, basic craft, but can be adapted to incorporate structure and function lessons in a classroom setting. Students will build their own fish from a paper plate, decorate it, and learn about the function of each of their fish’s fins in the process.