The students learned about how much of the Earth is composed of water versus land through a fun globe toss. They also learned about the Continential Drift Theory and Plate Tectonics. The younger students created maps and map keys by identifying the continents and oceans . The older students used an atlas to locate the ocean a boat was sailing in on a class activity sheet.
We learned that the ocean salt is about 3.5% the weight of sea water. We also learned that salt makes the water more dense. We did an egg bouyancy experiment to see that in action! The egg in the salt water floated while the egg in the fresh water sank.
Our next adventure was to explore the ocean floor. We took a virtual tour of the floor, read a text, watched a video, and did some vocabulary activities to learn the new words. Last, we did a water color model of the ocean floor!
This week, we focused on learning about the 3 main zones in the ocean: sunlit, twilight, and midnight. The students read background texts as well as watched videos about the ocean zones. Students did some vocabulary sorts to explore different characteristics of each zone. We created a flipbook including key facts about each zone as well as different types of marine animals that live in each zone. We had a discussion about how ships/boats use GPS coordinates from lines of latitude and lines of longitude to show their location in the ocean. Students did a task learning how to grid coordinates to label different marine animals in different ocean zones.
Students also learned about currents and waves. Students read a nonfiction text about surface currents vs deep water currents. We then did an experiment where we mixed hot and cold water to watch how the different water temperatures "swirled" together to model a current. Students did a Quickwrite about their observations during the experiment using some of their new vocabulary. Students also read a nonfiction text about waves, identifying the crest (top of the wave) and the trough (bottom of the wave). Students got to create a 'wave in a bottle' and watch how waves generate energy across the bottle. Students did a Quickwrite about their observations on how a wave forms. Last, they created a pop-up card of their own wave creation. Students used creativity to draw and label their wave, including other pop-up features in their display.
This week, students learned about 4 different types of islands: barrier, oceanic, coral, and continental. First, they read background texts about islands and completed a comprehension task to check for understanding. Next, they sorted different island characteristic cards to identify which type of island each card described. Students focused on bolded words and context clues to determine their answers. Last, students put their map skills to the test on an Island Hunt...finding 10-20 islands on a world map and identifying the continent each island belonged to.
We culminated our study of islands with island projects! The younger grades created his or her own island, also creating a map key. The upper grades researched an island and created a travel poster to encourage tourism.