Other Activities

Eighteen activities for students to practice their math, geography, science, and language skills while learning about the world's oceans can be found at

Education World Celebrate the Year of the Ocean

Daily Electronic Journal Activities

Draw and write about your favorite seafood.
Read a book about oceans. Write the title and a brief description
Write a story called "How the Swordfish Got Its Name.
You've discovered a sunken treasure! Write about it.
Read the label of a can of tuna. List the nutrition information.
List all the things you can do on the beach.
Write 5 safety tips for playing in the ocean.
Make a word search using ocean words.
List some of the things in the grocery store that come from the ocean.

If I Could be an Ocean Animal

Language Arts - Grades (all)

Teachers: This activity can be used to focus on any point of grammar, paragraph writing, or parts of speech.

Objective: The student will write three paragraphs describing themselves as an ocean animal.

Activity: Discuss various ocean animals (whales, sharks, jellyfish, eels, etc.) and their characteristics. Have the students brainstorm and make a list of all the ocean animals discussed in class. If they could be one animal for a day from that list, what would it be? Then on a separate sheet of paper, they are to make a list of the following 10 aspects of that animal's life and answer them about their ocean animal.

1. environment

2. shelter/protection

3. migration

4. location in the world

5. location in the water

6. coloration/camouflage

7. how do they swim/move/anchor

8. body type and covering

9. predators/prey

10. friends

The first paragraph should state the name of the animal and describe its surroundings. The second paragraph should include information about predators/prey and what other types of fish or friends it hangs out with in its environment. The final and third paragraph should state the students reasoning for choosing that animal (ideally it should be one of the 10 aspects of that animals life).

The teacher can choose if the paragraphs should be turned in in rough draft format for final touches, if lines need to be skipped for editing, or if the paragraphs should be typed or hand written. A really nice method of finalizing this activity is to allow students to write their paragraphs on a legal size sheet of paper (8 1/2 by 14) and then draw their animal somewhere, including the environment around the margins of the paragraphs, and have a catchy title at the top. Display on classroom bulletin board or school display case.

Ocean Postcards

Social Studies - Grades (all)

Teachers: This activity will bring new life to the usual reports done by students when researching new areas of the world.

Objective: Students will create a postcard that describes one of the world's oceans, gulfs, or seas he/she visits in class.

Materials:

colored pencils, crayons (avoid markers, since they may bleed through the index cards)
index cards (8 X 10)
library books about different oceans and seas
magazine pictures from different oceans and seas

Teacher Background:

As you are teaching the ocean and bodies of water in your Social Studies or World Geography class, students will better recognize and locate them if they have had to create something describing that ocean, gulf, or sea. Postcards are used to describe a location during a visit or vacation, and sent to family and friends showing them where the visitor has been. Students will create a postcard describing an ocean, gulf, or sea, using the same characteristics of an actual postcard, and they can either post them in the classroom on a map that outlines their travels or even send them through the post office to their parent's home.

The teacher can decide to incorporate this as an ongoing project done as each ocean/gulf/sea is discussed in class, or use as a culminating art project, summarizing the unit taught in class. The activity can be extended further into a formal report, where the student must list and turn in predetermined information set by the teacher, along with the postcard as the visual aspect of the project.

Activity:

1. Ask students what is a postcard and what is it used for. Have some examples of real postcards to pass around so students can see the different parts of one. The aspects of a postcard are:

1. picture on the front

2. description of the picture on the back in the upper left side

3. message area on the back on remainder of the left side

4. place for address of person sending to on the right side of the back

5. place for stamp in upper right corner of the back

Image of the different sections of a postcard

2. Students can either choose there own body of water or pick them from a hat prepared by the teacher so that no one student has the same location.

BODIES OF WATER
Oceans	Seas			Gulf
North Atlantic Ocean	Red Sea	Sea of Japan	Kara Sea	Persian Gulf
South Atlantic Ocean	Arabian Sea	South China Sea	Bering Sea	Gulf of Oman
Indian Ocean	Mediterranean Sea	Coral Sea	Baltic Sea	Gulf of Aden
Arctic Ocean	Ionian Sea	East China Sea	Black Sea	Gulf of Thailand
North Pacific Ocean	Tyrrenian Sea	Yellow Sea	Barents Sea	Gulf of Alaska
South Pacific Ocean	Aegean Sea	North Sea	Tasman Sea	Gulf of Mexico
Antarctic Ocean	Adriatic Sea	Greenland Sea	Caspian Sea	Gulf of Bothnia
	Caribbean Sea	Lincoln Sea	Arafura Sea	Gulf of Finland
		McKinley Sea	Sea of Okhotsk
		Beaufort Sea
		Norwegian Sea

3. Students can use their textbooks, library books, or computer resources to research their body of water. They are to list the following 5 location characteristics for their body of water. Students are to choose an interesting piece of information from one of the 5 location characteristics to use on their postcard.

4. Location Characteristic

1. climate

2. water temperature

3. marine life

4. nearby countries

5. influence on local countries

5. The report can be in a listing style or formal report style depending on the teacher preference, using the information obtained in each of the 5 location characteristics.

6. The postcard front should be completely covered with a colored drawing based on their interesting piece of information. On the back in the upper left side, their needs to be a 3 sentence description of the picture on the front. In the message area, the student is to write a message describing their visit to this location.

Example:

Dear Mom and Dad,

I just visited the Caspian Sea. Did you know the Caspian Sea is really a lake since it is surrounded on all sides by water?! Also, it is the world's largest inland body of water. In fact the tour guide said that Lake Michigan could fit inside of it almost 7 times! Miss you, but I'm having fun.

Your loving daughter,

Rebecca

The postcard should have their home address filled out (include USA) and a stamp brought in so the postcard can be sent home. If the teacher decides not to send them home, the stamp can be created by the student using something from one of the nearby countries.

Extension: The teacher can modify this activity to meet individual differences or level of difficulty for grade level at this point. The teacher also can decided if students check and verify this with them, since some students may want to choose a basic marine life for the postcard to take the easy way in this activity.

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