FOR SEA Grades 9-12 – Unit 6 Our Home: The Estuaries

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Grades 9-12   Unit 6
Our Home: The Estuaries

Table of Contents

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Introduction
Conceptual Scheme
Marine Aquaria
Bibliography
Successful Fieldtripping

1. The Boundary Bay Game
Students play roles in an interactive game which introduces the places we call estuaries and the water quality issues facing communities that have built on estuaries.

2. Estuary Currents
Students observe how fresh water and salt water behave when they meet and mix.

3. Barnacle Beats- Testing an Animal
s Response to Variations in Salinity.
Students perform one or more of the following four labs to learn how to measure and mix salt water samples. Then they measure cirri movements in barnacles immersed in waters of differing salinities.

4. How Salty Is the Water?
Students predict the salt content of sea water and then evaporate a sample to measure the remaining salt.

5. Making Test Tube Hydrometers
Students create hydrometers and use them to measure the salinity of water samples.

6. The Determination of Salinity- Hydrometer Method
Students use commercial hydrometers to measure the salinity of water samples.

7. The Determination of Salinity- Titration Method
Students use a titration techniques to measure the salinity of water samples.

8. Salinity
This reading describes the constituents of sea water and their sources.

9. The Effects of Salinity on Living Tissue (The Potato Lab)
Students measure the changes in potato cores soaked in fresh water and in salt water to see how salinity differences affect tissue.

10. Dealing With Salt
This reading and experiment compare weight changes in poor osmoregulators, such as sea stars, and effective osmoregulators, such as shore crabs, when exposed to waters of differing salinities.

11. Plankton I, II, III
This lab includes identification of plankton, the vital microorganisms of the estuary. It also includes several methods for quantifying plankton populations.

12. Name That Salmon
Students work in groups to identify the differences and similarities between seven species of salmon and trout that allow the fish to utilize estuarine habitats without competing with one another.

13. Pacific Salmon: Species in the Spotlight and Salmon Cycles
This reading focuses on the salmon life cycle and ways in which human activities threaten salmon species as they utilize several habitats.

14. The Homing Salmon – Three Level Guide
This reading and three-level guide describe pioneering research exploring how salmon find their way back to their spawning stream.

15. Hooks and Ladders
This outdoor game models the salmon life cycle and its hazards.

16. Toothpick Fish
Toothpicks model salmon genes in this activity in which students explore how natural selection changes genetic diversity and how hatcheries alter salmon gene pools.

17. Native Americans: People of the Salmon
Students use a text to help research and present traditonal northwest Native American ways of life with emphasis on ways the Native Americans were catching and using salmon before the 1800s.

18. Native Americans: Exploring Culture Through Mythology
Students read a northwest Native American myth and learn from it how values about salmon and how to preserve salmon runs are taught from one generation to the next.

19. Native Americans: Early Contact
Two student teams role play two very different fictional cultures meeting and attempting to trade items each group values. Students explore the dangers in misunderstanding unfamiliar cultures.

20. Native Americans: Who Gets to Fish?
Students analyze how the Boldt decision allocating fish in U.S. northwest waters has affected native and non-native fishermen.

21. Pollution in Paradise
This activity introduces contaminants commonly introduced into estuarine waters.

22. Water Quality Monitoring – Temperature
The following lessons teach students how to perform and interpret nine water quality tests and assemble them into an overall water quality index.

23. Water Quality Monitoring – Dissolved Oxygen

24. Water Quality Monitoring – B.O.D.- Biochemical Oxygen Demand

25. Water Quality Monitoring – Nitrates and Phosphates

26. Water Quality Monitoring – pH

27. Water Quality Monitoring – Turbidity

28. Water Quality Monitoring – Total Solids

29. Water Quality Monitoring – Moving Up the Chain
Students examine how contaminants are concentrated in the food chain.

30. Water Quality Monitoring – Coliform Bacteria

31. Water Quality Monitoring – The Big Picture
Students interpret nine water quality tests and assemble them into an overall water quality index.

32. People and the Sea: Issues
Students identify issues facing marine habitats.

33. People and the Sea: Actions
Students plan and take action to address a selected issue facing marine habitats.

Production Credits

Below, you’ll find helpful resources for use with the above activities.

Unit VI: Resources

Activity 2 Estuary Currents
Chesapeake Bay – a model estuary guidebook

Chesapeake Bay Ecosystem
Geology Of The Chesapeake
Water & Sediments
Habitats
Living Resources & Biological Communities
Food Production & Consumption
Preserving Chesapeake Bay: The Big Picture

Activity 10 Boundary Bay Game
Estuary – A link to the sea article
Estuary – A precise environment article
Estuaries article

Activity 12 Name that Salmon
Salmon identification cards
Chinook salmon photos
Chum salmon photos
Coho salmon photos
Pink salmon photos
Sockeye salmon photos
Steelhead trout photos

Activity 15 Hooks and Ladders
Salmon migration photos

Activity 17 Native Americans: People of the Salmon
Indians of the Pacific Northwest part 1
Indians of the Pacific Northwest part 2
Native American salmon fishing photos

Activity 20 Who Can Fish
Native American fishing photos

Activity 32 People and the Sea: Issues
Where have all the fish gone?
Portrait of Georges Bank
Georges Bank history
Mystery of the disappearing fish
Farming for fish
National Wildlife Federation Issues slide show
National Wildlife Federation Issues slide show script
Marine Debris and Entanglement slide show
Marine Debris slide show script

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