Essential Questions

1. Why is it important to not only protect ecosystems, such as a coral reef, but to observe and record the changes that occur in an ecosystem?
2. As we make changes in our own world, how do those changes affect other ecosystems hundreds of miles away?
3. Specifically, how is a coral reef like a human community or city?

• Web Weave
  Objective: To illustrate the importance of biodiversity
  Materials: long sturdy cotton rope
  Activity: Begin by getting the students into a circle. Ask one of them to sit out of the activity, to become the “Web Chain Checker” later on. Give the rope to a person in the circle and ask them what animal they would like to be. When they have named something, ask what that animal might need to survive. Appoint someone across the circle from them to be that element of habitat. Throw the rope over to them. Continue in this manner, criss crossing the rope through the center of the circle. Once you have done a wide variety of web chain relationships, ask about the web you have formed in the center of the circle. Does it look strong? Would it support life? Would it support one life in particular? Ask the “Web Chain Checker” to carefully climb aboard the web. With everyone holding their piece of rope tightly, you should be able to hold up the Checker. Now, pose a situation when the web might be broken….development, pollution, change in the biodiversity of the area. That situation breaks one of the links of the chain! Ask one student to drop their piece of rope to represent the break. Make sure the Checker stays safe. What happens to the Checker? Ask the kids WHY?
  Follow-up: Pose some day to day situations where web chains are broken....applying a systemic weed killer yard to kill those pesky weeds....spraying a neighborhood to fight mosquitos...sprinkling ant powder on the neighborhood ant hills. How do those little changes make big differences...or do they?
  
  
• Growing Coral
  
  
• Oil Spills...an activity from the Coral Reef Education Workbook
  Materials:
  i. Aluminum pie plates
  ii. Basin
  iii. Water
  iv. Feathers
  v. Vegetable oil
  vi. Cotton balls
  vii. Eye droppers
  viii. Bits of string
  ix. Pieces of Styrofoam and cardboard
  x. Nylon stockings
  xi. Straws
  xii. Detergent

Activity: Drop a few feathers in a basin of clean water. Watch the feathers drift lightly on the surface of the water. Drench more feathers in vegetable oil and drop them into the water. Compare the two groups of feathers and note how much heavier and more sluggish the oil logged feathers are than the clean feathers. How would a bird feel if it were covered with oil? Compare this with if you went swimming with all your clothes on.

Supply groups of students with aluminum plates half full of water with a small pool (9 cm diameter) of oil in the middle as well as cotton balls, eyedroppers, bits of string, pieces of Styrofoam and cardboard, nylon stocking and straw. Students are to use the various materials to cleanup the "oil spill". Bring the class together and discuss the following:

1. Which was the best way to clean-up the oil spill?
2. What problems were encountered? (oil is slippery and difficult to control; gets on your hands; need a place to put it; used up all the cotton balls; broke the pool into smaller pools).
3. What was left after the cleanup? (oily straws, cotton balls etc; water still oily; sides of plate oily.)

Set up a second oil spill using an aluminum plate. Add some detergent and stir. What happens to the oil slick? It disperses. What happens to the detergent? It stays in the water. What could the detergent due to ocean life? (Poison them.)

Follow-up: Why is it difficult to cleanup an oil spill? Oil is hard to handle; water is an unstable surface; a lot of remaining soiled materials that need to be disposed of.

What should people and big companies do to make sure oil spills don't happen or don't poison the ocean? Have safety rules for companies to follow and cleanup a spill as quickly as possible.

Post-Presentation:

• Coral Reef Study...by Kids as Airborne Mission Scientists, consisting of 14 lesson plans
  
  
• Coral Reefs and Fishing Practices...a PBS lesson based on the Global Tribe series
  

• Calling All Explorers....the relationship between science and history
  
  
• Water Conservation
  
  
• City in the Sea

Additional Educator Resources

Books:

• Coral Reefs: Cities Under the Sea by Dr. Richard Murphy
• Coral Reef Education Workbook for ELEMENTARY Students and Teachers
• Bill Nye the Science Guy Big Blue Ocean
  

Videos:

• Coral Reef Adventure...an IMAX film
• Ocean Life
• Adrift on a Gulf Stream...NOVA series

Websites:

• Tour Nemo's Home with Jean Micheal Cousteau
• Corals and Coral Reefs...from Sea World
• Sustainable Reefs: A Global Initiative
• A Guided Tour
• History of Ocean Exploration
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• EPA...water
• Project WET
• Surfriders
• Exploring the Environment
• ReefBase
• NOAA Lesson plans...based on Ocean Explorer field seasons
• Safeguarding the Oceans

Journal Topic

"To sail on a dream on a crystal clear ocean
To ride on the crest of a wild raging storm
To work in the service of life and the living
In search of the answers to questions unknown
To be part of the movement and part of the growing
Part of beginning to understand"

Student Self-Evaluation

Teacher Evaluation

1. The student used the journal question as a reflection after the program.
2. The student was able to answer the self-evaluation questions.
3. Through the Coral Reefs and Fishing Practices exercise, the student was able to make a connection between science, nature, and the human endeavor to understand how our environment affects our lives.
4. The student used technology such as the Internet to research the history of coral reef exploration and the delicate nature of the reef community.
5. The student created the affects of an oil spill to make a connection with the real world disaster. The student was able to see the debilitating effects of oil on the feather and how difficult it is to clean and correct.