Teacher Resources

Life Science Classes

Explorers of the Ocean 
Grade 3-4 

What will we find beneath the ice of Jupiter’s moon, Europa? Is it possible that an ocean of water lies beneath? How much do we know about our own oceans? How do ocean plants and animals survive in extreme environments from the ever-changing tide pools to the greatest depths of our oceans? We will explore some ocean inhabitants and learn about their structures and behaviors. Topics such as salinity, tide pools, camouflage, bioluminescence and hydrothermal vents will be covered. Through both whole group activities and learning station rotations, students will discover through direct observations the diversity of life that exists in the Earth’s ocean. 

Vocabulary:

Series of Possible Activities:

• Introduction – Hydrothermal vents and the search for life in deep ocean environments. Poster of Europa and image of the cryobot vehicle for exploring an ocean below an icy surface.
• Salt water and fresh water environments – simple experiment to illustrate different densities and how animals search for a suitable zone for the sake of survival.
•  Marine life observations – Students rotate through five different marine tanks, looking for any life forms, noting how many there are and where they are spending their time. 
• Introduce learning stations – The One Square Seashore software, squid features, fish dissection software station, barnacles, sea stars, and diatoms microscope station, mystery sea creatures station, handling live sea creatures station, brine shrimp station, bioluminescence station, sorting and classifying mollusks station.
• Closure - What did we find out? This is the time to review highlights of today’s investigations and also acknowledge any questions that may have arisen as a result of the different activities.

Pre Activities:

 Explain reasons for field trip (discuss theme).

Stress following directions exactly and listening carefully.

 Introduce vocabulary if appropriate (optional).

 Using old magazines, have students find pictures of marine life, cut them out and create various habitats on poster paper for students to stick them. Some suggested areas include: rocky, sandy, reef, tide pools and open ocean areas. 

Post Visit Activities:

• See the “Living Sea” production in the Tien Mega Dome theatre.
• Explore the many food products of the sea to emphasize how dependent we are on these valuable ocean resources. 
•  Visit one of the websites below for further explorations of the ocean inhabitants.

Website References:

What is bioluminescence? Find out about this remarkable feature and the many ocean inhabitants that possess this “cool light”
http://www.biolum.org/

OceanLink Students, K-12, can access a range of information. Features include: Aqua Facts (octopuses and squids); Ask a Marine Scientist; Ocean News. Sponsored through a partnership between Canadian marine science organizations. 
http://oceanlink.island.net/

SchoolNet Ocean Site
Links to marine life/oceanography lesson plans, teacher resources, and thematic units. 
http://preview.schoolnet.ca/vp-pv/ocean/ 

SeaWorld website:
This website provides information about sea animals and has links to other interesting sites.
http://www.seaworld.org/

State of California Science Standards :

Grade 3
Life Sciences
3. Adaptations in physical structure or behavior may improve an organisms chance for survival. As a basis of understanding this concept, students know:

a. plants and animals have structures that serve different functions for growth, survival, and reproduction.
b. Examples of diverse life forms in different environments such as oceans……and wetlands.
c. Living things cause changes in the environment where they live; some of these changes are detrimental to the organism or other organisms, whereas others are beneficial.
d. When the environment changes, some plants and animals survive and reproduce, and others die or move to new locations.
e. Some kinds of organisms that once lived on Earth have completely disappeared; some of these resembled others that are alive today.

Grade 3
Earth Sciences
4. Objects in the sky move in regular and predictable patterns. As a basis for understanding this concept, students know:
d. the Earth is one of several planets that orbit the sun, and the moon orbits the Earth.

Grade 4
Life Sciences
3. Living organisms depend on one another and on their environment for survival. As a basis for understanding this concept, students know:
a. ecosystems can be characterized in terms of their living and nonliving components.
b. For any particular environment, some kinds of plants and animals survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.

Earth Sciences
5. Waves, wind, water, and ice shape and reshape the Earth’s land surface. As a basis for understanding this concept, students know:
c. moving water erodes landforms, reshaping the land by taking it away from some places and depositing it as pebbles, sand, silt and mud in other places (weathering, transport, and deposition)

Grade 5
Earth Sciences
3. Water on Earth moves between the oceans and land through the processes of evaporation and condensation. As a basis for understanding this concept, students know:
a. most of the Earth’s water is present as salt water in the oceans which cover most of the Earth’s surface.

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