Budding Marine Biologists

What To Do

Activity Prep

• Prepare materials for Activity A2: How do we eat?
  • Fill cups halfway with water and add plastic animals to the cup.
  • Tape pieces of paper to the desk.
  • Place magnets inside the fingerprints of a glove. 
• Optional: print final certificates (1 per participant) and ask the educator to write the students names on the certificates. They will be handed out at the end of the workshop.

Activity A1: What is an adaptation?

• Participants will look at animal pictures and figure out how they are different from humans and each other. Explain that these differences are adaptations. 
• As you show the pictures to the group, ask the following questions for each animal:
  • What are the similarities and differences between this creature and you?
  • How might these adaptations help these animals?
  • Where would an animal use this adaptation: on land, in water or in the air?
• Record answers on the classroom board (optional). 

Activity A2: How do you eat?

• Separate participants into 6 groups. Hand out each type of “tool” and “food” to each group. 
• They are going to explore how different animals eat by using tools to try and collect or breakdown examples of food. 
• Use the activity supplies to demonstrate how animals eat in different ways. 
• They will attempt to pick up each “food” using the different types of tools. What tool (mouth) works best with each food?
• Discuss how each creature uses their mouth to get food. 

Activity A3: Time to Talk

• Set up 5 stations around the classroom for each type of communication. Each station should have a Communication task card. 
• Split participants into pairs to rotate around to each station to test communication (approx. 3-4 minutes per station).
• Each participant will have a chance to practice a type of communication while their partner will try to guess what kind of message they are sending (message options on the Communication Task Cards).
  • Station 1: Sound (Whale and Cetaceans): hum to one another with their eyes closed to send a message.
  • Station 2: Lights (Plankton, Squid): use the flashlight to create flashes of light.
  • Station 3: Colours: create patterns and blends of colours to send a message. 
  • Station 4: Bubble (Dolphins): squeeze pipettes full of air into the water to make bubbles. 
  • Station 5: Posture (Fish, Crabs): use body language/posture to send a message. 
• Discuss the relationship between the method of communication and where an animal lives.

Activity B1: Adapted for habitats

• Discuss some of the things that animals need to survive and their adaptations. 
• Place the pictures of the different creatures and of each environment on the board. 
• Participants will try to figure out where each of the animals lives and make observations about its special adaptations for that environment.
• Using the examples below, illustrate what may happen if a part of an animal’s habitat is taken away or lost.
  • Why may a fish die if we take it out of water?
  • Why don’t deer and other animals have gills?
• Discuss how there may be more than one way for an animal to get what they need from the environment.

Activity B2: Unusual Animals

• Separate participants into 12 groups. 
• Allow them to select different adapted parts and add them together to make their own creature.
• Let each group present their water creature to the rest of the group, have them name the creature and describe where it lives and the special ways it moves, eats and communicates. As the they are presenting, they should relate each adaptation to where the creature lives.

Activity B3: Dive Deep 

• Explain that they will be “travelling” to the bottom of the ocean using a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) called Remotely Operated Platform for Ocean Sciences (ROPOS). 
• Show picture of ROPOS. Briefly mention how it takes ROPOS up to two hours to reach the bottom of the ocean. 
• Hand out one porthole to each participant. 
• As you enter each zone, hang the appropriate zone card on the board to help visualize the descent. 
  • Zone cards are designed to stack like a staircase.
• Have volunteers pull out the creatures from the “Surface Zone” envelope. 
• Discuss the characteristics and adaptations of the surface zone creatures and add them to the board beside the first zone card.
• Have volunteers pull out the creatures from the “Twilight Zone” envelope.
• Discuss the characteristics and adaptations that these creatures have to live in this dark and cold (4-6 ºC) environment. 
• Add animals and zone adaptations images to the board. 
• Have volunteers pull out the creatures from the “Bottom Zone” envelope.
• Discuss the characteristics and adaptations that these creatures have to live in this very dark and very cold (1ºC) environment. 
• Add animals and zone adaptations images to the board.
• Discuss reasons why some animals would live in complete darkness. 

Wrap-Up

• Discuss possible careers related to the topics covered and what they would need to do (schooling, experience, etc...) to get into those careers. 
• Hand out final certificates to each participant. Now they are a Budding Marine Biologist!