Ocean Week Activities We Offer

Our staff can offer the following list of activities for presentation to your class during Ocean Week. We will bring all the materials and worksheets necessary to present the chosen activity to your class. We can assist you or present other activities from your MARE Teachers Curriculum Guide by special arrangement. Please refer to the MARE Curriculum Guide for more information and details on specific activities. The activities may require you to do some preparation with your class in the form of into activities before our staff comes.

Our staff need 15 minutes between classes for transit and set up for the next activity. Each MARE staff person can do a maximum of 3 programs per day. Center staff will discuss ways in which you can be actively involved in team teaching the activity.

Rocky Seashore (Kindergarten):

Earth/Physical Activities

• Water Works: Students investigate properties of freshwater and saltwater through hands-on experiments and guided observations. They explore sinking and floating, surface tension, and dissolving at several activity stations.

Biological Science Activities

• Seashore Charades: Students act out the adaptations of organisms at the rocky seashore at high tide and low tide using slides as prompts.
• Seashore Bingo: Students observe the diversity of plant and animal life at the rocky seashore. They identify the names and pictures of plants and animals by playing a bingo game using drawings of rocky seashore organisms.

Rocky Seashore (first grade)

Earth/Physical Science Activities

• Water Works: Students investigate properties of freshwater and saltwater through hands-on experiments and guided observations. They explore sinking and floating, surface tension, and dissolving at several activity stations.

Biological Science Activities

• Seashore Charades: Students act out the adaptations of organisms at the rocky seashore at high tide and low tide using slides as prompts.
• Seashore Bingo: Students observe the diversity of plant and animal life at the rock seashore. They identify the names and pictures of plants and animals by playing a bingo game using drawings of rocky seashore organisms.
• Seashore Slething: Students investigate the properties of rocks and sand. Through hands-on activity stations and guided observations they explore beaches and rocks, make “sand”, investigate sand through microscopes and compare the relative stability of sand, rock, and gravel.
• Crayfish Capers: Students work in small groups to create a habitat for crayfish. They observe the crayfish’s external anatomy and behavior to discover the ways a crayfish is adapted to live in a water home.
• Who Am I?: Students work in small groups to teach each other about some important traits of tidepool creatures. They participate in a “game show” and 20-questions type of guessing game to check for understanding.

Sandy Beach (second grade)

Earth/Physical Science Activities

• Beach Bucket Scavenger Hunt: Students in small groups explore a simulated sandy beach in a plastic tub that is littered with beach drift and debris, and discover the differences between once living (biotic) and never living (abiotic) objects through cooperative small group work.
• Sand on Stage: Students using magnifiers and working in small groups, compare the color, size, and shape of several sand samples to determine their origins.

Biological Science Activities

• Ears to You: Students work cooperatively to teach each other about the adaptations that seals and sea lions have for living in the ocean, and about the differences between seals and sea lions.

People and the Sea Activities

• Oil on the Beach: Students learn where oil comes from, the many ways people use oil, and how and why we should conserve it. They help make a classroom sandy beach and observe how it is affected by simulated tidal changes as oil spilled offshore washes onto the beach. Students then work in small groups using a variety of methods to attempt to clean up an oil spill.

Wetlands (3rd grade)

Biological Science Activities

• Bird Beak Buffet: Students role-play species of birds with beaks of different shapes and sizes. They gather different food items with their “beaks”, graph the results, and compare their feeding success.
• Oyster Beds: Students, in small groups, make observations about oyster shells and communicate their observations to other students with words or drawings. They find the “match” to their shell and with their partner hypothesize about the living animal which made it.
• Clam Dissection (Bivalve Booklets): Students learn about the structure, biology, and natural history of bivalve mollusks by dissecting a clam.
• Wetlands Slide Show: Slide show highlighting the plants and animals of the JC NERR.

Shallow Bays (4th grade)

Biological Science Activities

• It Takes All Kinds: Students observe color and shape adaptations in diverse fish and use this information to predict fish habitat and lifestyle.
• Fish Formation: A student is transformed into a fish to demonstrate the major adaptations of fish to life in water. Classmates contribute to the dress up demonstration by suggesting adaptations to solve different aquatic needs (like swimming, turning, feeding).
• Seaweed Sorting: Students work cooperatively to learn about the scientific classification of plants and animals by observing, sorting, and classifying seaweed samples into self-defined catagories.
• Meadows Under the Sea Slide Show: A Slide show illustrating the plants and animals of shallow bays, the importance of submerged aquatic vegetation, and human impacts on shallow bays.
• A & E Bingo: Students will work cooperatively to learn the structure and uses of several types of seaweed and compare it to sea grasses. They use this information to play bingo.
• Dash for Grass: Students explore the biological communities of Barnegat Bay and learn how seagrasses provide important habitat for plants and animals of the Bay environment.

Open Ocean (5th grade)

Earth/Physical Science Activities

• Apples and Oceans: Students use an apple and a pie chart to represent the planet. They slice the apples and draw the chart in sections illustrating various critical resources available from the land and ocean, and realize what a small fraction of the planet they represent.
• Current Trends: Groups of students examine the relationship between the temperature, salinity, and density as they rotate together to three different activities and experiment stations.

Biological Science Activities

• Squid Dissection: Students work in pairs to dissect a squid and investigate its structure and how all the parts function together to allow the squid to survive in the open ocean environment. The squid is then honored as the students participate in a squid feast.
• The Great Plankton Race: Students construct plankton models from materials of various shapes and densities to stimulate adaptations which slow sinking. They “race” their models (slowest wins) and calculate and graph sinking rates.

Islands (6th Grade)

Earth/Physical Science Activities

• Sands of Time: Students, in small groups perform several tests to compare the size, color, shape and source material of several sand samples to determine their origins and the type of beach from which they came.
• Shark Dissection: Students work in small groups to dissect a shark and investigate its structure and how all the parts function together to allow the shark to be so well adapted to its habitat and lifestyle.
• Barrier Island Slide Show: slides and discussion on New Jersey 120 miles of beaches.

Biological Science Activities

• Horseshoe Crab Activity: Students work with horseshoe crab models and learn about the important relationship between migrating shorebird populations and horseshoe crab spawning.

Coral Reefs (7th grade):

Earth/Physical Science Activities

• Sands of Time: Students, in small groups perform several tests to compare the size, color, shape and source material of several sand samples to determine their origins and the type of beach from which they came.

Biological Science Activities

• It Takes All Kinds: Students observe color and shape adaptations in diverse fish and use this information to predict fish habitat and lifestyle.
• Coral Reef Slide Show: slide show, and artifacts focusing on life and death on the coral reef.
• Sea Anemones Activity: Students observe live specimens and discuss the special symbiotic relationship between corals and their zoothanthellae.

Polar Seas (8th grade)

Earth/Physical Science Activities

• Apples and Oceans: Students use an apple and a pie chart to represent the planet. They slice the apples and draw the chart in sections illustrating various critical resources available from the land and ocean, and realize what a small fraction of the planet they represent.
• Current Trends: Groups of students examine the relationship between the temperature, salinity, and density as they rotate together to three different activities and experiment stations.

Biological Science Activities

• The Great Plankton Race: Students construct plankton models from materials of various shapes and densities to stimulate adaptations which slow sinking. They “race” their models (slowest wins) and calculate and graph sinking rates.
• Polar Seas Slide Show: Slide show highlighting scientific research in the Antarctica.