NOAA Sea to Sky: Education resource database

Data in the Classroom has structured, student-directed lesson plans that use historical and real-time NOAA data. The five modules address research questions and include stepped levels of engagement with complex inquiry investigations with real-time and past data.

This activity is designed to expose students to the larval forms of many animals found in the estuary. In order for students to determine which “water baby” they are, they must ask their classmates questions about their baby’s characteristics to help them guess who they are.

Dive into tutorials on corals, estuaries, global positioning, pollution, ocean currents, and tides. Learn the basics about these topics and how they are a part of NOAA's work.

In this activity, students build their own fish and describe how it lives in its habitat. Students choose which type of body shape, mouth, and tail will aid in the survival of their fish in their habitat. Students can draw in scales and sensory organs if they choose.

Enjoy this short coloring book from the North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve. 

This webinar series was developed by NOAA's Regional Collaboration Network and Woods Hole Sea Grant at WHOI in response to the COVID school closures. With over 100 webinars featuring different NOAA experts/topics and a moderated question and answers session throughout so that students could get a peek at what our NOAA scientists do in all the various NOAA offices. They range in geography, content, and NOAA line office focus but are all designed to engage the students, answer their questions, and give them a glimpse of possible career options. Captions are available in English and Spanish. Many have ASL interpretation.

Explore this collections of lessons, activities, videos, coloring pages, and field guides from the North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve on life in that estuary.

In this activity, students investigate the range of conditions that selected animal and plant species need to survive in an estuary. They examine data for abiotic factors that affect life in estuaries—salinity, dissolved oxygen, temperature, and pH. Students use archived data (trend analysis graphs) and real-time conditions to predict whether a particular animal or plant species could survive in an estuary.

Presenter Cathy Sakas, from Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, discusses the connections between rivers and the ocean.

In this activity, students will take part in a simulated fishery, harvesting California market squid that are common in Monterey Bay and the Pacific Ocean. Because of their quick response time to environmental conditions, market squid provide an interesting example of ecosystem-based management at work. Student groups will role-play in a simulated fishing community, making decisions while also facing a range of natural and human-made challenges. Students will attempt the challenging task of maintaining a balance that sustains both the squid population and the squid fishery, which relies on that population and then analyze the results of their decisions.