6th - 8th Grade
Please select the Coastal Education Program you booked for your trip to the Living Coast. We've created activities designed to enhance your students' learning experience both before and after your scheduled field trip. Also included is a program description, standards addressed and a sample of the daily schedule.
Do your students have what it takes to be a field biologist? This program is a perfect introduction to everything ecology. Students will get to explore a native San Diego wetland looking for evidence of organism interactions and food chains. Come be challenged by the delicate balance of an ecological food web that must overcome disasters, natural and man-made alike.
Get your hands all scaly and slimy with this dissection. Students will learn about the ins and outs of what makes a fish a fish and how their internal anatomy is really not that different than ours! Through this fun, interactive dissection, students explore the internal and external parts that help a fish survive in a marine environment.
The Good, The Bad and The Bizarre
Discover the animal “gene pool lottery” that will produce good adaptations, bad traits, and bizarre appearances for wild animals. Students will model dominant and recessive traits with a chance to create an ultimate animal or be stuck with a bizarre organism. Students will be asked to critically discuss whether such mutations are harmful, beneficial, or neutral to their animal, as well as real life examples found right here on the marsh!
Learn what it is like to be an ecologist monitoring the state of local waterways. This lab will include a variety of real experiments and tests such as salinity, pH, and oxygen levels that are sure to get students excited about science! Students will also collect and view samples of plankton to check its vitality. Students will practice their scientific skills, work in teams and experience real-life hands-on science on a local watershed. TIDE DEPENDENT PROGRAM- See Ideal Dates Here