
Educators' Corner
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.
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
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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.
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Who Moved the Beach?
NOAA Ocean Service Education
Coastal erosion is a natural process that sweeps large sections of land out to sea. Students will learn about how this process occurs and then explain how human activity can increase erosion risk. They will then determine how to reduce these risks, understanding both the advantages and disadvantages of various options. Students will also look a beach elevation data and make predictions on how vulnerable they are to erosion.
Plot Your Course
NOAA Ocean Service Education
Charting your course on the high seas is a skill required of all seafarers since the beginning of ocean exploration. In this lesson, students will use nautical charts to determine the distance between locations. They will also identify obstacles and features that can aid in navigation.
What Do Scientists Do?
Moorea Coral Reef LTER Education
To help students understand that science is a part of their everyday lives, students will complete an activity where they create a collage of people doing science using magazines and drawing pictures. This lesson gives students a realistic idea of what science is and helps them understand that scientists are real people answering interesting questions. Watch interviews with scientists.
Introduction to Latitude and Longitude
National Geographic Xpeditions
This lesson introduces students to latitude and longitude. They will look at lines of latitude and longitude on a United States map and discuss the reasons why these lines are helpful. Students will also discuss the ways that temperatures vary with latitude and will explain the clothes they might wear at specific latitudes.
Be a Scientist
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Learn how scientists collect field data by being a scientist yourself! By studying a specific ecosystem, students learn how different scientists work together, what kinds of data scientists record, and experience the scientific process through observation and data collection.
Is Climate Change Good For Us?
Wild BC
In this activity students are encouraged to consider how climate change could impact them personally and how changes may affect their regions. Students will analyze the roles of organisms as part of interconnected food webs, populations, communities, and ecosystems, assess survival needs and interactions between organisms and the environment, assess the requirements for sustaining healthy local ecosystems evaluate human impacts on local ecosystems.
Understanding Sea Level Using Real Data
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Students will use graphical data to understand changing sea levels and how they will impact people around the globe.
Undersea Geologic Features: Bathymetry
NOAA Ocean Explorer
Students create models of undersea geologic features on a bathymetric chart. Students interpret and explain the difference between bathymetric charts and topographic maps.
Sharks: Setting the Record Straight
NOAA
Often mislabeled as man-eaters, sharks prefer to eat creatures in the sea. Students learn about how different sharks play different roles in a food web.
Coral Conservation
NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program
Students will learn about the natural and human threats to coral reefs including destructive fishing practices.