Exploring Ocean Mysteries is a curriculum that makes it easy to teach the seven Ocean Literacy Principles while meeting NGSS, Common Core and Climate Literacy standards. Lessons are targeted to middle grades and adaptable for grades 4-12. They use the National Marine Sanctuary System as an engaging backdrop that helps students understand their importance for exploration, research, Indigenous cultures and more.
Ocean Literacy Essential Principle 1: Earth has one big ocean with many features.
In the Watersheds to Whales lesson, students will learn about watershed stewardship and make observations about how water and pollution runoff can infiltrate landscapes and flow to the ocean. They create either a clay or paper model of a watershed and observe how water flows through the model. They consider sources of pollution and how that pollution could travel through a watershed and affect national marine sanctuaries or monuments and the organisms that live there.
Lesson Plan
Students will:
- Analyze a map of local streams to see how water returns back to the ocean and/or nearest national marine sanctuary or monument.
- Argue from evidence how water from their local watershed could get to the nearest national marine sanctuary through ocean currents and wind.
- Consider how pollution in their area might travel to sanctuaries and impact life found there.
- If the Enrich/Extend activity is completed, students will participate in a litter clean up event and suggest other ways to prevent marine pollution.
Learn how our watersheds transport trash and oil to local water bodies and our global ocean through this slideshow presentation.
