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Welcome to our searchable database of education resources created by NOAA and our partners. If you have issues or feedback, please let us know by filling out our feedback form offsite link or sending us an email at education@noaa.gov.
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Monitor National Marine Sanctuary offers a variety of free resources for educators. Resources include social studies activities, as well as science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) activities, lesson plans, and guides. Each section below is filled with STEM activities, lesson plans, and games. Explore the Civil War and USS Monitor, World War I, World War II, Shipwrecks and STEM, Wrecks as Reefs, the Outer Banks Maritime Heritage Trail, and more.
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Seamounts represent some of Earth’s tallest peaks, unexplored territories, and critical habitats supporting important fisheries across the globe. Students will apply the phenomenon of upwelling and currents to determine why many seamounts sustain diverse ecological communities and support surprising levels of biological productivity in nearby waters. Students analyze data and various models to evaluate how well they represent patterns of ocean currents around seamounts and determine the effects these current flows have on productivity.
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Enjoy this short coloring book from the North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve.
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This activity book includes puzzles and coloring pages and information about the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
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Principles and concepts for estuaries 101: The big ideas and essential details students should learn about estuaries.
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The System-wide Monitoring Program, or SWMP (pronounced “swamp”), Graphing and Export System provides educators and students with access to SWMP data. These data mysteries will help students explore real events using the SWMP Graphing and Export System. Have them graph and then analyze each parameter to find out what happened, whether there was a significant change or spike in a parameter, why something occurred, who or what was impacted, and why. These mysteries are actual events tracked by reserve system researchers.
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Despite existing in the depths of the ocean, where sunlight cannot reach, hydrothermal vents are oases of life in the deep. In this investigation, students explore the phenomenon: How can ecosystems survive without sunlight? and develop their understanding of chemosynthetic communities through student-sensemaking.
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As a part of the 50th anniversary of the 1972 National Marine Sanctuary Act, the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries released posters capturing the beauty and diversity of your National Marine Sanctuary System.
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The nation’s 28 National Estuarine Research Reserves (NERR) are experiencing the negative effects of human and climate-related stressors according to a 2013 NOAA research report from the National Ocean Service. The national study, Climate Sensitivity of the National Estuarine Research Reserve System, points to three East Coast reserves, Sapelo Island NERR in Georgia, ACE Basin NERR in South Carolina and Waquoit Bay NERR in Massachusetts, and the Tijuana River NERR on the California-Mexico border, as the most sensitive to climate change.
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These books feature coloring pages and activities about coastal ecosystems. Regions include Guam, Chesapeake Bay, Coastal North Carolina, Salish Sea, Mobile Bay, Hawaiʻi, Louisiana, and Arctic/Antarctic.