The Feeding Frenzy : Seasonal Upwelling (6-8)
Overview of the box
Concepts and Standards
Lessons:
1 Marine food webs &
energy flow
Activities:
1 Making algae grow.
2 Ocean surfaces over time
3 Research a marine organism
4 Introduction to
marine food web
5 Marine food webs
6 Class marine food web
2 Primary production
& upwelling
3 Seasonal upwelling
4 An assessment:
Read all about it!
Online resources
Student Web Page
Teaching Boxes Home
Lesson 1: Marine Food Webs and Energy Flow

Activity 2

Ocean Surfaces Over Time

Materials / Preparation

Students will explore five pictures of ocean surfaces. These can either be accessed online from Ocean Surfaces on the Exploring Oceans Student Web Page, or you may want to create class sets of the color images and laminate them.

Grouping

Groups of four

Teacher tips

This activity is intended to be an introductory activity. Its purpose is to create an awareness that there are differences in the surface of the oceans, but the students do not know yet that it is due to seasonal activity.

Procedures

  1. Explain to the students that they will be exploring oceans over the next few weeks. Ask students to close their eyes and picture the surface of an ocean. "What do you see?"
    a. List their descriptions on the board placing them into two columns, which you can later label: biotic and abiotic. Some of the abiotic (physical) evidence might be: wave action, rough seas, and sunny day. Some of the biotic (biological) evidence would be many seabirds, whales on top of the surface, small fish jumping up.
    b. Review these terms with your students.

  2. Tell students they will be looking at five pictures of oceans and that they will be asked to describe what they see happening. They should describe both the biotic and abiotic evidence for what they see.
    a. Hand out the Ocean Surfaces Worksheet and indicate how to access the URLs for the activity if students are viewing the pictures online from the Ocean Surfaces section of the Exploring Oceans Student Web Page. If not, hand out the sets of pictures to each group.

  3. Have each group share their answers to the questions.

  4. Introduce the idea of describing what they are seeing as a quiet ocean and an active ocean.

    a. Ask the students to look at the pictures again and decide as a class whether the oceans should be labeled as quiet or active.
    b. Ask them what could account for the differences? (Answers might include: "the animals have all moved on to another area" or "the pictures represent a different time of the day or a different time of the year," etc.)
    c. Have students complete questions four and five on the worksheet.
    d. Students, or the teacher, need to save these worksheets for use in lesson 3, activity 2.

  5. Review the animals that they saw in the pictures. Ask them to name other marine organisms that might be found commonly in oceans. Let them know that they will soon be researching the life histories of some of the marine organisms feeding in the North Pacific Oceans.

Resources used

Ocean photo #1
http://www.teachingboxes.org/catalog.jsp?id=TBOXR-000-000-000-051

Ocean photo #2
http://www.teachingboxes.org/catalog.jsp?id=TBOXR-000-000-000-052

Ocean photo #3
http://www.teachingboxes.org/catalog.jsp?id=TBOXR-000-000-000-053

Ocean photo #4
http://www.teachingboxes.org/catalog.jsp?id=TBOXR-000-000-000-054

Ocean photo #5
http://www.stcroixems.com/Photos/Bahamas Trip/DCP_4825.JPG

Ocean Surfaces Worksheet
http://www.teachingboxes.org/upwelling/lessons/lesson1_supplement/OceanSurfacesWorksheet.pdf

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