STANDARD - ABILITIES NECESSARY TO DO SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY
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Estuaries: Give Me Shelter - COSEE Coastal Trends 
Lesson PlanSummary
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.
Coastal ocean systems provide important habitats for organisms.
Education Standards
Estuaries: Predator Prey Interaction - COSEE Coastal Trends
Summary
Students explore the role of seagrass as habitats.
Coastal ocean systems provide important habitats for organisms.
Education Standards
Estuaries: Larvae Feeding - COSEE Coastal Trends
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.
Coastal ocean systems provide important habitats for organisms.
Education Standards
Wetlands: Marsh Elevation - University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
Lesson PlanSummary
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.
Coastal ocean systems provide important habitats for organisms.
Education Standards
Wetlands: The Fragile Fringe - USGS
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.
Coastal ocean systems provide important habitats for organisms.
Education Standards
Rocky intertidal: Monitoring the Intertidal with Life-Sized Photos - Farallones Marine Sanctuary Association
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.
Coastal ocean systems provide important habitats for organisms.
Education Standards
The Benthic Drugstore - NOAA Ocean Explorer
Summary
Students identify and investigate the importance of pharmacologically active chemicals found in specific marine invertebrate species.
The ocean affects human life in many ways. The ocean provides many resources for humans.
Education Standards
Ocean Power - U.S. Department of Energy
Summary
Students investigate methods used to generate energy from physical ocean processes as well as design an Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) system.
The ocean affects human life in many ways. The ocean provides many resources for humans.
Education Standards
90+ minsTragedy of Commons Game - COSEE Coastal Trends
Summary
Students play the role of fishermen to demonstrate how overfishing can occur.
Humans affect the ocean and therefore must protect it.
Education Standards
The Drill on the Spill: Learning About the Gulf Oil Leak in the Lab - New York Times, The Learning Network
Summary
Students explore the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Oil spill by accessing high quality data-based models and maps on the New York Times website. They also develop a research question about oil spills or clean-up technology and design a lab investigation to answer the question.
Humans affect the ocean and therefore must protect it.
Education Standards
