Our Ocean Portal Educators’ Corner provides you with activities, lessons and educational resources to bring the ocean to life for your students. We have collected top resources from our collaborators to provide you with teacher-tested, ocean science materials for your classroom. We hope these resources, along with the rich experience of the Ocean Portal, will help you inspire the next generation of ocean stewards.
Featured Lesson Plans
Keeping Watch on Coral Reefs
Students learn why coral reefs are important, and what can be done to protect them from major threats.
Long Live the Sharks and Rays
Students will learn about adaptations that have helped sharks and rays survive. Students will explore similarities and differences between sharks, rays and other fish and that different types of sharks and rays have different temperaments and diets and that some of the largest sharks and rays are the most gentle.
Focus on Farmer Fish
In this two part lesson, students gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between environmental factors and organism adaptations through a focused study on a specific coral reef denizen—the personable farmerfish. Students first take part in an interactive PowerPoint presentation to gain background knowledge and then apply learned concepts by participating in a board game.
Search Lesson Plans
Find lessons/activities by topic, title or grade levels. Sort by newest or alphabetically. Lessons were developed by ocean science and education organizations like NOAA, COSEE, and NMEA to help you bring the ocean to your classroom.
Let’s Make a Tubeworm
NOAA Ocean Explorer
Students will be able to describe the process of chemosynthesis in general terms; to contrast chemosynthesis and photosynthesis; describe major features of cold seep communities; and list at least five organisms typical of these communities. Students will be able to define symbiosis; describe two examples of symbiosis in cold seep communities; describe the anatomy of vestimentiferans; and explain how tubeworms obtain their food.
Life of a Coral Reef Fish
COSEE – Central Gulf of Mexico
To synthesize a lesson on coral reefs, students write first person narratives as though they were reef organisms including their daily lives and the threats facing themselves and their communities.
Long Live the Sharks and Rays
Discovery
Students will learn about adaptations that have helped sharks and rays survive. Students will explore similarities and differences between sharks, rays and other fish and that different types of sharks and rays have different temperaments and diets and that some of the largest sharks and rays are the most gentle.
Monsters of the Deep
NOAA Ocean Explorer
Students will be able to describe major features of cold seep communities; list at least five organisms typical of these communities; infer probable trophic relationships among organisms typical of cold-seep communities and the surrounding deep-sea environment; describe the process of chemosynthesis in general terms; contrast chemosynthesis and photosynthesis; and describe at least five deep-sea predator organisms.
Mutualism and Coral Reefs
Moorea Coral Reef LTER Education
This lesson is created to stress the idea of interrelationships among organisms and how this can effect the surrounding environment. This lesson also goes step by step through the scientific approach to developing and implementing a scientific research study. Students are expected to write their own ideas about the best way to investigate the scientific questions provided, and compare their ideas to those of the actual researcher.
Now You See Me, Now You Don’t
NOAA Ocean Explorer
Students will be able to explain light in terms of electromagnetic waves and explain the relationship between color and wavelength; compare and contrast color related to wavelength with color perceived by biological vision systems; explain how color and light may be important to deep-sea organisms, even under conditions of near-total darkness; and predict the perceived color of objects when illuminated by light of certain wavelengths.
Sea Surface Temperature and Coral Bleaching
NASA
Students will learn about how ocean temperature increase can be a cause of coral bleaching.
Shark!
Sea World Education
Students explore the natural history of sharks and recognize that humans are an interconnected part of sharks’ ecosystems.
Splash – Monitoring Humpback Whales
NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries Program/National Geographic
Students learn the importance of monitoring endangered marine mammals like humpback whales and how monitoring can help marine conservation efforts.
Symbiosis and Coral Anatomy
NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program
Students read and then present to the class about different types of symbiosis. They are then introduced through a PowerPoint presentation to the coral-zooxanthellae relationship.