Oceans

One of the best places to refresh your knowledge about oceans is Smithsonian: Ocean. Spend some time exploring the site’s features on Ocean Life, Ecosystems, Planet Ocean, Ocean Conservation, Climate Change, and Oceans Through Time.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is a great source for ocean information. Ocean Facts provides answers to all kinds of ocean questions and is a good place to send curious students. Ocean Exploration brings you into the world of ocean research.

NASA: Oceanography discusses the place of oceans in Earth’s systems, including the water cycle, the carbon cycle, and climate variability.

London’s Natural History Museum has a wealth of resources on ocean science, focusing on current research about ocean life and challenges to ocean health.

SciShow videos offer educators concise and engaging information about many topics. Check out Unsolved Mysteries about the Ocean Floor, Secrets of Deep Sea Mountain Ranges, and Newly Discovered Ocean Creatures.

Review your understanding of tides, waves, and currents, and how oceans affect land climate and weather.

The following lessons contain videos, teacher’s guides, discussion questions, background reading, and student activities.

• Kids Go Green: Litter and Our Oceans
• Deep Ocean Volcanoes 
• Perpetual Ocean
• Global Ocean Circulation
• Ocean Adventures: Adaptations, Ecosystems, and Human Impact with Educator Guide
• The Role of Ocean Currents in Climate
• Warmer Oceans Affect Food Web
• Watching the Tides
• Ocean Exploration: Inner Space
• Healthy Oceans: Flipside Science

The Marine Science Collection from PBS LearningMedia contains interactives and lesson plans for grades K-12.

At NOAA’s education site, you’ll find a wealth of educator resources, including standards-aligned lesson plans, ocean literacy guides, interactive activities, and marine debris curricula.

NOAA’s Ocean Exploration site provides middle-school lesson plans based on actual ocean expeditions and scientific discoveries.

NOAA has extensive Resource Collections for teachers that include lesson plans, multi-media resources, and student materials on topics ranging from ocean acidification and marine debris to whales, sharks, and coral reefs.

Take a look at NOAA’s collections of hands-on science activities and oceanography experiments for ocean-related classroom projects.

NOAA provides classroom-ready data resources to help your students use real data to “think like a scientist.”

National Marine Sanctuaries offers lesson plans and teaching units for grades 3-8. Check out the 360° virtual reality videos and accompanying lesson plans and activities.

Smithsonian Ocean Portal’s Educators’ Corner has lesson plans and educational resources to bring the ocean to life for your students. Also from the Smithsonian, Secrets of the Sea offers interactives and online activities to help students learn about healthy marine ecosystems.

National Geographic’s Ocean Education collection features resources to help your students learn about ocean life, ocean geography, and human impacts on oceans. Lessons are organized for grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12.

The University of Southern California provides hands-on activity lessons on the topics of ocean geography, sand, waves, and tides. Students will create a model of the ocean floor and form human waves.

Secrets of the Ocean Realm, from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University of California, offers engaging classroom activities to introduce students to marine ecology and biology. Although designed for grades 5-7, extensions and adaptations for lower grades are also provided.

Marveling at the Marine Biome from Arizona State University includes leveled student text with selections on the ecosystem features of both the open ocean and coastal environments. Content is also available in Spanish.

Ohio State University provides a collection of K-6 lesson plans on ocean basics, waves and currents, marine animals and adaptations, ocean conservation, and ocean technology and careers.

Ocean Challenge is a compilation of lesson plans for students of all ages.

Science Buddies has ocean-related lesson plans, classroom STEM activities, and science projects for beginning to advanced students, including the science behind tsumanis, the global conveyor belt of ocean currents, and how ocean waves build beaches.

From the California Academy of Sciences, Healthy Oceans is a series of videos and lesson plans for middle-school students that explores issues affecting our oceanic resources, including marine biodiversity, plastic pollution, coral reefs, and climate change.

Monterey Bay Aquarium provides an Educators’ Page with video lessons, activity pages, curriculum guides, and printables.

Take a look at these lesson plans on specific ocean topics:

• Layers of the Ocean from Elementary School Science
• Sensational Seaweed from California Academy of Sciences
• Ocean Influences Climate from National Science Teaching Association
• Kelp Forest Exploration from Monterey Bay Aquarium, with Teacher’s Guide
• Ocean Unit for Grades K-1 from Manchester University

Kid-friendly resources for student reading and research:

• Kiddle Encyclopedia: Ocean
• Brittanica Kids: Ocean, for grades 3-5 and grades 6-8
• DK Find Out: Oceans and Seas
• National Geographic Kids: Ocean Portal
• American Museum of Natural History: Marine Biology
• Kids Do Ecology: Marine Biome and Coral Reef

NOAA’s Resources for Kids contains activities for elementary-age students. Check out the extensive series of ocean videos, the marine debris page, and marine sanctuaries activities. For middle school and up, Resources for Students contains tutorials on many ocean topics.

NOAA also provides ocean activity booklets for students containing puzzles, games, facts, and coloring pages. You may want to download Be An Ocean Guardian, Coral Reef Coloring Book, Understanding Marine Debris, or Exploring the Ocean with Alvin.

This infographic allows students to envision the scale of Earth’s surface extremes, from the cruising altitude of a jet to the deepest ocean depth.

Have students identify oceans, continents, and ocean floor features with this whole-class or individual online activity.

For primary-grade teachers, this teacher-created ocean collection includes experiments, activities, and art projects.

Aquarium virtual field trips offer students a fascinating look at the world of marine organisms.

You may want to access this compilation of ocean videos and puzzles.