Plankton Studies

This past week I had planned on studying plankton with my kids- a little about what they are, some ocean food chain stuff, and bioluminescence. I just hadn't put all the details in place yet when Sheryl in NH shared her finds with us over at the FIAR message boards. I knew I had found the perfect lesson when I saw it!

You have to watch this video. Learned a new skill by the way, embedding this YouTube video on my blog. Very cool stuff. When I shared it with Dan he simply replied, "No. I will not make cute videos for the web." He knows he could totally pull this off. Dan already has his own YouTube video scientist style...it's even toured around the country as part of an exhibit. A story for another time.

We used these plankton lesson plans from UCLA as Sheryl suggested. What a great lesson! I used to do this sort of thing with my students in the classroom all the time. Awesome stuff for classifying organisms. J4 has super cutting skills.

Initialing the backs so they don't lose their plankton. Afterward we sorted them into two groups and talked about what they are and where to find them and about how plankton are the base of the ocean food chain.

We glued them onto a notebook page once they were sorted correctly. A wonderful activity to build a group based on certain criteria. Very valuable skill and fun too!

If you know anything about the book, Nim's Island then you know that Jack, Nim's dad set out on an exploring expedition to find a particular plankton. It's what happens to the both of them on that trip which makes the story of the book. So...we had to find out about plankton. Yes? Of course.