Ocean Sustainability
by Athena Foley, Allie Valladao, Kate DeLap, and Jessica Hendry
We believe that ocean sustainability is an important topic to address in schools. The ocean is one of the earth’s most vibrant ecosystems, but its equilibrium is being threatened by negative human impact. Therefore, it is important to address issues of sustainability with students of all ages in order to foster respect for the ocean and a life-long passion for conservation. Below are a list of resources we have compiled specifically for teachers who are interested in incorporating the topic of ocean sustainability into curriculum.
· (Under “Activity Ideas”) Activities 5, 7 and 8 specifically address issues related to sustainability. Activity 5 is about oil spills, activity 7 is about jobs that involve the ocean, and activity 8 is about extreme ocean weather and the effects of global warming. Human impact is a common thread running through all these activities, and each represent an important area of study that could be expanded into a larger unit.
· (Under “Related Resources”) There are links to other related PBS websites if you follow this link, and one in particular that relates to the topic of human impact on oceans: Bill Moyers Reports: Earth on Edge-Get information about the millennium Ecosystem Assessment and learn how humans are affecting coastal ecosystems around the world. Students in the upper elementary grades could investigate this report on coastal ecosystems if they were interested in learning more about specific case studies, and teachers could use it to provide students with interesting data about negative human impact.
· (Under “Related Resources”) There is also a list of recommended books about the oceans for children. This could be a good place to find books to support a unit on the oceans or to add to the classroom library.
The Bridge- An Ocean of Teacher-Approved Marine Education Resources <http://web.vims.edu/bridge/?svr=www>
· This is a site filled with lesson plans, statistics, facts, and news articles that specifically address marine education. It is most obviously a great resource for teachers looking for inspiration and information for their science classes, but can also be used interdisciplinariliy. It is a site specifically intended as a resource for educators, but is also accessible and useful for the general community. As a teacher, I might use some of the news articles from The Bridge to support a lesson on current events or language arts. Because this site also contains valuable data, this information could be used in a lesson on data analysis or even mathematics.
Recommended Resources About Human Impact on Oceans
• Under the tab “Lesson Plan Library” link there are some great resources about the ocean grouped in the category “earth science”.
• There is also some good background information under the tab “Ocean and Climate Literacy” that teachers might want to use as a reference or make a copy available in their classroom for students in the upper elementary grades to take a look at.
• The interactive case study “Prince William’s Oily Mess: A Tale of Recovery” is a great interactive and multifaceted resource for students and teachers. There are excellent pictures, lots of different options for student exploration, and a quiz that students could take at the end of their work on the study. It would be best to use this resource on a classroom computer, but information could be printed and used in different ways during regular classroom instruction as well.
Ocean World <http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/index.html>
• Some of the different topics you can learn about on Ocean World, include fisheries, icebergs, and coral reefs. There is also a section for students, which includes kid-friendly pictures and information about the topic that they click on. In the educator section, there are links for getting background information on some of the important concepts, so they can teach issues concerning oceans more efficiently, and there are also ideas for different activities to do in the classroom with students. Kids love music, and one of the activity ideas is writing a rap, song, opera, or poem, about one of the issues concerning human impact on oceans. The activity ideas are creative for engaging students in issues concerning the oceans. There is also a section entitled resources, where you can find numerous ocean-related references, including a link for suggested books to read with your students (http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/book_galley.htm).
ECO-PROS Human Impact on Oceans <http://www.eco-pros.com/humanimpact.htm>
• This site addresses human impact on oceans. It talks about how we pollute our oceans (through dumping sewage, toxic chemicals, runoff, and insecticides into the ocean), how carbon emission affects the ocean, how plastic debris and nets destroy wildlife, the affects of clearcutting the ocean floor, piracy and fisheries, and how oil spills damage the ocean habitat. This does a good job dividing up the information based on different issues of how humans impact the oceans. Older students who are in 4th and 5th grade would be able to use this website if they were doing a research report on human impact on oceans.
Recommended Resources From National Geographic
• This website has a 5 page overview of basic ocean information that would be useful for teachers preparing a unit on sustainability and human impact on the oceans. The overview is broken down by topic, and some of the topics towards the end- drilling, pollution, and global warming- would be more relevant than others. There is also a long vocabulary list that could be used in a variety of different ways. Students could choose words that sounded interesting to them, for example “bycatch”, learn more about it their word(s) and then choose a way to share it with the class. Some of the potential ways student could share their words are: through song or movement; a short skit or acting out their word; using their word in a sentence or free write; and visually representing their word with a drawing or painting. This overview and vocab list could be a great starting point for individual or group projects on specific ocean topics.
• On other areas of this site, there is also very interesting information about the oceans, including a news article about some positive human impact: http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2011/08/12/an-ocean-miracle-in-the-gulf-of-california–can-we-have-more-of-this-please/
• There is also a fun ocean game that you can download that requires players to save a tropical island from pollution by earning points and practicing being environmentally aware. It could be a neat game to download on a classroom computer if that resource was available: http://natgeo.trymedia.com/t_14th_feature/s-1_3040_14922/AllGames/Arcade/Nat-Geo-Games-Build-It-Green-Back-to-the-Beach.html
• The section of the website that I found most interesting was the “Environmental Teacher Literacy Guides” page (http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/program/environmental-literacy-guides/). The guides are designed for the upper elementary and middle school grades, but could most likely be modified for the primary grades as well. The guides were created with the CA standards in mind, so they would probably be a very practical classroom resource. There are four guides listed: One Ocean, Changing Climate, Energy Potential, and Earth’s Fresh Water. These guides address our topic, but also some of the other broad areas of sustainability research.
• “Ten things you can do to save the ocean” is not specifically designed for kids, but is an article that can easily be used in the classroom to talk about what kids can do to help keep the ocean sustainable. It lists ten ideas of things that we can do as individuals to begin to make a difference. Teachers can plan a different lesson everyday or every few days based on one of the listed suggestions. All ten lessons together would make up a great unit on ocean conservancy. I think this list is a great resource for teachers looking to inspire kids to realize that they have the power to create change. It is important to relate learning to students and their everyday lives; the ocean affects all of us in many ways, and empowering students to join the fight to protect it might also spark their interest in learning more about the ocean.
• National Geographic, “Protecting the Ocean”: includes information on all of the current critical ocean issues including overfishing, sea temperature rise, marine pollution, etc. Most of the articles on this site would seem more suitable for upper elementary school students, because of the reading level necessary in order to understand them. It would still be beneficial to present to younger students when discussing the current ocean-related concerns because of the powerful photographs that make statements without requiring narration. National Geographic also provides videos and a quiz on this site. While this specific website presents a great amount of information for teachers and adults, National Geographic also has a related site set up specifically for kids, which includes activities, photos, and games. The kids’ site, however, does not specifically address the human impact currently harming the oceans.
Recommended Resources About Organizations
Monterey Bay Aquarium <www.montereybayaquarium.org>
• This is a great site, for teachers as well as students. It has a interactive area for kids that learning games and activities. For the teaches they have numerous lesson plans broken up by grades and listing the standards that are covered in the lesson. My favorite lesson was one that shows the students how difficult it is to clean up the beaches contaminated by hazardous waste by trying to remove baking soda from a shoe box filled with wet sand. This site is huge for teachers, and talks about many programs you can apply to that really gets your classroom hands on experiences. As a bonus the Aquarium is local and has many ideas to enhance the visit of your class.
Oceana <www.oceana.org>
• This is a great organization that campaigns to save the oceans and many at risk creatures such as the sea turtle and hammerhead sharks. Their website is geared towards adults but they have a wealth of information about the science of the ocean, such as how light and sound work, that is written simply and teachers may be able to incorporate it into the curriculum in innovative ways they never thought of before.
Recommended Resources About Marine Life
Whale Times: Colossal Dictionary <http://www.whaletimes.org/whadict.htm>
• This website is a dictionary all about whales. The dictionary is alphabetized and in addition to including the different species of whales, there are also words that relate to how whales survive (like adaptation), what they eat (like plankton), different parts of the whale (like flukes), and vocabulary that addresses whaling (like harpoon and subsistence hunting). I think that animal reports are great ways for students to learn about a specific animal while also teaching them the process of research and writing papers. It would be great to have students work individually or in groups, researching endangered animals in the ocean in relation to human impact. This would be a good resource to use if students were doing a research report on whales, because the website provides a good foundation of whales and how they live in the ocean.
Enchanted Learning: Endangered Animals <http://www.zoomschool.com/coloring/endangered.shtml>
• This website has information about all the Endangered Animals in the world, including ones that live in the ocean. It is a great resource for teachers, because they can click on specific animals, (There’s a link to Blue Whales, Great White Sharks, etc.) and then download worksheets for their class. There are worksheets that include diagrams of the different animals, and also information about the animal (what it eats, how they swim, etc.). If beginning a unit on endangered animals in the oceans, this is a good resource to use, so children are able to learn about what these animals look like and how they survive in the ocean.
Marine Bio <http://marinebio.org/>
• This website is great for teachers to explore and learn about the issues concerning marine species, ocean conservation, research, and how you can make a difference. There are links to learn about sustainable fisheries, threatened and endangered species, ocean pollution, and habitat conservation. The link, 100 Ways to Make a Difference, is very relevant to students, because it touches on basic things that they can do as individuals to make a difference, such as encouraging kids to become leaders and taking responsibility for their actions, to reading books and magazines on oceans, and eating only sustainable caught sea food. I think as a class, it would be neat to try to see how many ways on the list that they would be able to accomplish. This website is also good for independent research, because there are a wide variety of topics, and it would be a good website for students to explore during computer lab time.
“100 ways to make a difference”. This site has a bunch of links to videos and websites that address sustainability in regard to oceans and 100 ways to reduce human impact. They are easy steps that a class can pledge to do together or teachers can use as a home extension and the progress can be followed year long.
• Sea World has created and compiled 19 different Teacher Guides on numerous different topics for all grade levels. Each of these guides is a packet that includes information, vocabulary, fact sheets, activities, and worksheets that teachers can use in their classrooms. They also include lists of children’s books, videos, and websites that teachers might choose to take advantage of to support their lessons. Most of the guides available teach about different marine animals but there are also guides on Endangered Species, Ocean Discovery, and Saving the Wild. This is an amazing resource that would be incredibly useful for teachers embarking on a unit on marine life.
Recommended Documentaries, Videos and Books:
• This is a School House Rock video entitled “Save the Ocean”. It is not very informational but would be a great way to open a discussion on ocean conservancy.
• A documentary about plastic, but talks at length about how it is affecting sealife and the Great Pacific Gyre.
• List of books for children 6-8 on amazon. This is just a quick link to a sample of books teachers could read reviews on and consider including in their classroom for a unit on oceans.
• This documentary is not for younger children but there are clips that can be shown to lower grades about the consequences of keeping dolphins, and other animals, in captivity. I would recommend this movie for adults, and if you see fit to show it in your classroom some editing may be required depending on the grade level of your students
• This is a short documentary that takes a look at programs throughout the bay area who are helping to conserve the ocean. It may serve as an inspirational video to start off a conservation effort in your own classroom.
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