Teachers Resources

Our Puget Sound's Wildside Book is a wonderful resource for teachers. Full color graphs and illustrations adds excitement and impact to each lesson. Educating our next generation on the importance of the Puget Sound is essential to sustain our local environment. We also have some educational tools and resources listed below:

The Puget Sound:

Cowabunga! Some Cool Wave Theories (Grades 7-9)
Thirteen Ed on Line:
In this lesson, students will gain a greater understanding of the different types of ocean waves, how they are created, and whether they can experience them in their local environment. Through the NATURE episode "Condition Black" and an interactive Web site, they will learn about the parts of a wave and how energy is transferred from the wind to the water. As a culminating activity, students will generate their own waves during a hands-on experiment and create a fun video.

Estimating Populations (Grades 8-12)
NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries:
This lab enables students to use a quadrat tool to perform a transect, which allows researchers to count species in a small area of an ecosystem, to represent the whole ecosystem.

Game of Life (Grades 7-10)
NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries (pdf doc):
Making choices to sustain seafood populations starts with an understanding of the role each species plays in their ecosystem and the result of their removal from that ecosystem. Through the game in this lesson, students will understand the effects of over-fishing on the sustainability of fish stocks and, thus, the ability to meet the human demand for seafood. By the end of the lesson, they should understand that the removal of many individuals from a fish stock makes it difficult to replenish.

Habitat Sweet Habitat (Grades K-8)
Seaworld (pdf doc):
Students will be able to describe the general habitats of seals, sea lions, and walruses. (This activity could be adjusted to grade levels from kindergarten to middle school.)

Plants and Algae:

Algae - Where Does it Live?

Get the html doc. (Grades 5-9) Mary Ellen Dote: In this observational activity students will understand what green algae is and where it grows, be able to test the growth of algae in four different types of water - lake water,  well water, distilled water and tap water.

Students will record data while watching and recording the growth of algae.

Invertebrates:

Spineless – YES...Helpless – NO!  (Grades 7-9)
Thirteen Ed on Line:
The oceans are filled with many unusual invertebrates. This lesson will explore these organisms and the means by which they survive in and adapt to their watery environment.

Barnacles: Harder Than Cement  (Grades 8-10 +)
Beacon Learning Center:
Students will be fascinated watching the movements of the complex animal hidden inside the tiny barnacle shells. This lesson allows students to study the behavior, adaptation, and larval stage of the barnacle.

Salmon:

Wy-Kan-Ush-Pum (Grades 4-6)
Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (pdf doc):
This is an activity book for mid to upper level elementary students.  It has multiple learning style activities about salmon and Native Americans that would be engaging for students.

Salmon (Onocoryhnchus tshawytscha)
David McCullough, Krista Fong, & Jennie Furrer:
http://bioregion.ucdavis.edu/salmoned/learning/restoria/Salmon.html

For this lab exercise, students will have to answer a series of seven questions, with each question addressing an aspect of the Salmon¹s life cycle and habitat.  Four questions will be provided at each of the seven stations set up in the lab, from which the student will determine his or her own personal question by using their sense of smell.  If there are any students with smelling disorders they should be paired with another student or shown which question is theirs at each station.

Salmon use their sense of smell to find their way back to their birthplace. They do this so that they can spawn in the same location that they were born. This activity requires students to use their sense of smell to find their way to specific questions at each lab station.

Birds:

PBS series “Life of Birds” (Grades 6-12)
PBS:
This activity involves doing a field study of the birds in your area.  It could be as simple as bird watching in your own back yard or as involved as doing field studies in an area known to have a greater concentration of birds.

Birds: ( Grades 9-12; Duration Three Class Periods)
Discovery Education
Scientists disagree on the evolution of birds. Some evidence based on scientific research points to the belief that birds evolved from reptiles; other evidence strongly suggests that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Students are going to become experts on the question of bird evolution and hold a debate to explore the merits of each point of view.

Bird Adaptation and Survival
Ocean News 
.. a Newsletter from the Public Education Program of the Bamfield Marine Science Center:
Throughout this activity students will explore bird adaptations and predict what birds are most likely to survive – or perish – in the face of global climate change. This is an advanced activity that is somewhat complex and requires students to have independent work skills, and be able to use computers to search the internet, unless considerable preparation is done before the class.

Bird Migration
Newspapers in Education Seattle Times (pdf doc):
In pairs or small groups, students play a migration game in which they represent a bird migrating between the region of the Refuge and to the Pacific Northwest.  The paths of two bird species in two seasons are followed:  the southbound fall migration of brants and the northbound spring migration of white-crowned sparrows.  In the simulated migration, the students will encounter resources and challenges that migrating birds face, both human and natural.  Students narrate their journey through writing and share their ideas with the rest of the class.

Where Do Birds Live? Cavity Nesters of The Watsonville Wetlands
Patrick J Fitz Wetlands Educational Resource Center (pdf doc):
Where do different wetland birds make their nests?
Students explore some in-depth facts about two wetland cavity nesters, learn some benefits these birds provide to the wetland ecosystem, and make connections between the needs of cavity-nesting birds and human activity.

Migration Studies (Grades 6-12)
British Columbia Waterfowl Society & Ducks Unlimited Canada (pdf doc):
Migration Studies provides basic fact sheets and activity sheets for teachers and
older students from Grades 6 to 12, and is intended to complement field trips to
the Sanctuary, an internationally-renown migration stopover point for birds.
This package includes materials to introduce the following topics to students:

• The Migration of Birds and Other Animals
• The Significance of Estuary Ecosystems to Migration
• Wrangell Island Lesser Snow Geese
• Wintering Waterfowl Surveys
• The Conservation of Migratory Birds and Their Habitats

Marine Mammals:

Seals, Sea Lions, and Walruses (Grades 4-8)
Seaworld Education (pdf doc):

The Seals, Sea Lions, and Walruses Teacher’s Guide for grades 4–8 was developed
at SeaWorld to help you teach your students—in an active, hands-on way—about
pinnipeds and the ecology of the ocean.

WhaleNet  (Grades 6-9)
WhaleNet Resources:
WhaleNet offers students and teachers curriculum resources and support, a source of data for interdisciplinary classroom activities, and interactive informational support through WhaleNet utilizing telecommunications.


The Great Whales (Grades 6-9)
The Oregon State University Marine Mammal Institute (pdf doc):
This curriculum is intended for teachers interested in a whale unit for their 6th- to 9th-grade classes.
Teachers can select individual activities and materials for instruction or work through them sequentially from beginning to end.

Natural Habitats:

For the Last 10,000 Years...Estuarine Research Reserves ( grades 9-12)
NOAA Ocean Service Education:
In this activity students will describe the National Estuarine Research Reserve System, and explain how to obtain information on the 26 sites in the System.  In addition they will discuss why sites in the National Estuarine Research Reserve System are likely to contain important cultural artifacts.

Getting Physical with Estuaries (Grades 9-12)
National Estuarine Research Reserve System:
Students will identify and quantify variations in selected physical factors in estuary environments. They will then explain the relationships between water depth, salinity, temperature, and dissolved oxygen, and how variations in one of these factors can affect the others. Given a series of observations on water depth, salinity, temperature, and dissolved oxygen in an estuary, students will make inferences about relationships and processes that explain these observations.

Ocean Habitats: he Intertidal Zone
American Field Guide (PBS):
The activities contained in this unit are designed to enable students to investigate the creatures of intertidal zones and how they've adapted to the conditions in which they live.

Human Impacts:

Get to the Point! (Grades 9-12)
Nonpoint Source Pollution  
NOAA Ocean Service Education:
In this activity students will describe at least five sources of nonpoint source pollution runoff. They will identify at least three contaminants likely to be found in urban runoff, and discuss possible sources of these contaminants.  Students will then discuss how bioassays may be used to measure toxicity, and describe three examples.  Students will compare and contrast toxicity tests and chemical analyses of potential contaminants, and explain how these may be used to identify areas affected by nonpoint source pollution.  Finally, students will be able to describe and discuss at least five actions that can be taken to reduce or eliminate contaminated runoff.

Alien Invasion! Invasive Species (Grades 9-12)
NOAA Ocean Service Education:  
In this lesson, students compare and contrast invasive species.  Students are to prepare a written case study on an invasive aquatic species. Their reports should include the native location of the species, how it was introduced to an ecosystem, where it became invasive, what impacts are associated with the invasive species, and what control measures are possible.

Bad Algae! (Grades 9-12)
Harmful Algal Blooms
NOAA Ocean Service Education:
For this activity students will investigate what are harmful algal blooms and what can be done about them.

The Drill on the Spill
Learning About the Gulf Oil Leak in the Lab
New York Times, The Learning Network:
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.

Water, Science and Civics (Grades 6-8)
Engaging Students with Puget Sound
Facing the Future:
This series of five lessons is available in PDF and SMART Board format. This engaging unit leads your students through an exploration of the significance of Puget Sound and the impact humans have on this valuable resource. Students creatively use technology throughout the unit and the culminating lesson is an action project in which students create a digital public service announcement to educate others about the significance of the Sound and ways to address pollution.

Exotic Tunicates on the Move (Grades 6-12)
A marine biology investigation for middle or high school students of Puget Sound
Friday Harbor Labs Science Outreach Program:
This is a series of inquiry based activities dealing with invasive aquatic marine animals, specifically tunicates.  Students in the Puget Sound region have a chance to witness and help document the invasion of a newly arrived marine organism that attaches to docks and boat hulls. How it will affect the marine environment will take some time to assess, but one thing is clear already. This species is easy to spot as it moves into new parts of Puget Sound, and it may in fact become a dominant organism in parts of its new environment.