CONCEPT - COASTAL OCEAN LIFE


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Estuaries: Give Me Shelter - COSEE Coastal Trends


Lesson Plan 

Summary
Students observe the feeding behavior and success rate of blue gill feeding on brine shrimp in two different environments; one with seagrass and one without.

Concept: Coastal ocean life
Coastal ocean systems provide important habitats for organisms.

Education Standards




Estuaries: Predator Prey Interaction - COSEE Coastal Trends


Lesson Plan 

Summary
Students explore the role of seagrass as habitats.

Concept: Coastal ocean life
Coastal ocean systems provide important habitats for organisms.

Education Standards




Estuaries: Larvae Feeding - COSEE Coastal Trends


Lesson Plan 

Summary
Students play the role of feeding fish to demonstrate how striped bass larvae feed on copepods, their zooplankton prey, and how larvae are preyed upon by bigger fish.

Concept: Coastal ocean life
Coastal ocean systems provide important habitats for organisms.

Education Standards




Wetlands: Marsh Elevation - University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science


Lesson Plan 

Summary
In this field investigation, students visit a local wetland to explore plant zonation. Students construct a transect, use quadrats to count grass species, and graph their findings.

Concept: Coastal ocean life
Coastal ocean systems provide important habitats for organisms.

Education Standards




Wetlands: The Fragile Fringe - USGS


Lesson Plan 

Summary
Students explore wetlands through a series of lessons ranging from wetland identification to investigating the beneficial functions of wetlands and causes of wetland loss.

Concept: Coastal ocean life
Coastal ocean systems provide important habitats for organisms.

Education Standards




Rocky intertidal: Monitoring the Intertidal with Life-Sized Photos - Farallones Marine Sanctuary Association


Lesson Plan 

Summary
Students use photo quadrats of a real rocky shoreline to investigate the zonation of organisms in the rocky intertidal zone. Note: links to photo quadrats and organism ID guide are listed in the Materials section.

Concept: Coastal ocean life
Coastal ocean systems provide important habitats for organisms.

Education Standards




Coral Reefs: Draw a Coral Reef - COSEE Coastal Trends and National Park Service


Lesson Plan 

Summary
Students will draw a coral reef based on the prior knowledge.

Concept: Coastal ocean life
Coastal ocean systems provide important habitats for organisms.

Education Standards




Coral Reefs: Photoquadrats on a Transect - COSEE Coastal Trends and National Park Service


Lesson Plan 

Summary
Students will use pictures of a coral reef transect to graph the percentage of cover for that section of reef.

Concept: Coastal ocean life
Coastal ocean systems provide important habitats for organisms.

Education Standards