WATER TABLE FUN - Provide a variety of items that sink or float. Have the
children sort them accordingly.

SALTY SEA WATER - Do a sink or float game and make a chart of which objects
float and which ones sink. Then add lots of salt to the water and see if
there is a difference.

COLLECTING SEA SALT - Make up some salty water and then heat it to evaporate
the water and show the kids what is left behind.

WEB OF LIFE - cut out shapes of sea animals and have each child tape one to
his/her shirt. Have the children pretend to be the plants and animals shown
on their shirts. Ask the children to stand in a circle. Give a large ball of
yarn to one child. Have that child hold the yarn and toss the ball to
another child. Repeat until each child is holding a section of the yarn and
the web is complete. Explain to your children that the web represents the
web of life in the ocean. Each plant or animal is connect4d to all the
others in some way. Then, one at a time, have your children pretend their
plants or animals have disappeared from the ocean and have them let go of
the yarn. What happens to the web after one child lets go? After three
children let go? The web starts falling apart. When each part of the ocean
is taken care of, the web of life can stay together, just as the yarn web
did when all the children were holding it.

WHAT'S IN THE WATER? - Fill three bowls with water. Add vegetable oil to one
and liquid soap to the other and leave third as is. Let kids feel the
different bowls of water, describe what they feel like and ask them if they
were a fish which one would you like to live in. what do you think is in
each bowl? Explain to them that oil and soap are two kinds of things that
get into the ocean and pollute it.

OIL SPILL - Place a pie pan on the table for each of your children. Fill the
pans ? way with water. Set out spoons, cotton balls, fabric scraps, aluminum
foil, plastic netting and craft sticks on the table. Explain to your
children that one of the ways the ocean gets polluted is when oil is spilled
or dumped into it. Have children guess what will happen when you pour oil on
their water. Have the children us the objects on the table, or any other
that they can think of to try and remove the oil from the water. What is
happening to the oil and water? Is it easy or hard to remove the oil? If
there were animals living in the water, what would be happening to them?

WAVE TANK - Fill a large plastic soft drink bottle about one quarter full
with water. Add a few drops of blue food coloring and a drop of liquid
detergent. Pour in a small amount of clean sand or aquarium gravel. Blow up
two small balloons (draw fish face gills and fins) , release most of the
air, then tie the ends closed. Push the balloons into the bottle and screw
the cap on tightly. When you have finished, you will have a fish tank with
tow bobbing ?fish? inside. Rock it back and forth and watch the fish swim.
Make waves with a rope. Rope waves don't move forward like the ocean waves
but the water does go up and down just as the rope does.
MOVE OBJECTS WITH WAVES - Float some toys in a swimming pool and move them
around the pool by making waves.

WHAT IS SAND? - Use a magnifying glass to examine sand. Talk about how sand
is actually tiny pieces of rocks, shells or coral. Explain that sand is
created when materials such as rocks rub together. Over time, tiny pieces
of rock wear off and these pieces become sand. To explain this concept have
the children rub two sugar cubes together to make "sand". My children had
fun with this. Leave all items out for children to examine.

WEIGH SAND - weigh wet sand and compare to dry sand.

SAND CASTLE - build one with wet sand and dry sand.

SCULPTING THE OCEAN FLOOR - Explain to the children that the bottom, or
floor of the ocean is not flat; it has hills, mountains and valleys just as
those found on land. Have them make an ocean floor with mountains and
valleys out of clay in a glass-baking dish. Pour in some water and observe
from all sides. The parts sticking up are islands.

INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITIES - Look at "The Endangered Coral Reef" ready-made
bulletin board set (or make one to use before you start your studies)
together. Help students locate the rock?like structures of coral that
together make up the coral reef. Tell students that there are many kinds of
coral and that each one has a special shape. Ask students to find examples
of Elkhorn coral and ragged chalice coral on the boards. Provide as many
books about coral reefs as you can find so that students can look for other
kinds and formations of coral. Have older students keep a running list of
different kinds of coral as they continue to study coral reefs. (They may
come across mushroom corals, lace corals, tube corals, bubble corals, fire
corals, brain corals, knob corals, maze corals, and many others.) See if
students think the corals are well?named.
WHAT EXACTLY IS CORAL - Ask students if they think that coral is an animal
or a plant. Explain that many corals look like plants, but they are actually
colonies of tiny animals called coral polyps. To help students learn more
about coral polyps, give each student a copy the drawing of a coral polyp,
some colored clay, several toothpicks, and a tiny paper cup. (The cups,
which are used to hold bite?size pieces of candy, are sold in kitchenware
departments or kitchen specialty stores. You can also use the little cups
that you put ketchup in from fast food restaurants, a lot of the time they
will give to you if you say you are a teacher.) Have students study the
picture of the coral polyp and then make their own coral polyps out of clay.
To extend their understanding of how coral polyps live in colonies, have
several students cement their polyps together with additional clay.
SYMBIOSIS ACTIVITIES - Ask students to study the bulletin board to find
three examples of two sea animals living closely together. They should be
able to spot a shrimp and fish in a burrow, a fish nestled in a sea anemone,
and little fish and big fish close together. Discuss each symbiotic
relationship carefully
THE CLOWNFISH AND THE SEA ANEMONE - Anemone clownfish are always found with sea anemones, which provide them with a home and protect them from enemies.
Scientists think that the clownfish has a special mucous coating that
protects it as it nestles among the stinging tentacles of the anemone. The
clownfish repays the sea anemone by chasing away its enemies, such as
butterfly fish, which love to eat anemones. The clownfish may also help
clean the sea anemone by eating tiny scraps of food that are dropped by the
messy animal.

THE PISTOL SHRIMP AND THE GOBY - The pistol shrimp digs a burrow to hide in,
but the shrimp isn't very quick to sense danger?perhaps because it spends so
much time cleaning and digging its burrow. A fish called a goby "stands
guard" near the entrance to the burrow. When a predator approaches, the goby
dives into the burrow and the shrimp is alerted to quickly follow. The goby
has a custom?made place to hide, and the pistol shrimp can concentrate on
its digging.

THE GROUPER AND THE GOBY - Certain neutral territories in the coral reef are
used as cleaning stations. Several kinds of small fish and shrimp perform a
cleaning service for other fish. They advertise their good intentions with
elaborate movements?shivering, posturing, and displaying fins. Larger fish
make gestures to show that they want to be cleaned, and with this
understanding, predators and prey call a truce.

SYMBIOSIS SKITS - Ask volunteers to prepare short skits that will illustrate
the examples of symbiosis on the bulletin board. For instance, one skit
might be presented by two students pretending to be a pistol shrimp and a
goby fish. In their skit, they might explain why their strange relationship
works so well.

BALEEN WHALES - Become Baleen whales in the rest room. Have the kids fill
their mouths with rice kipsies and milk, clench our teeth, and spit the milk
out, messy but fun.

HOW DO WHALES SEE UNDER WATER - Discuss what whales may see underwater?
Have your students make an underwater scene using crayons, watercolors, etc.

JELLY FISH FUN - set out a large dishpan of water and some kitchen basters
or squeeze bottles. Let your children pretend to be jellyfish swimming
around and use the droppers to take water in and squeeze water out.

CRAWLING CRAB - Cut a crab shape out of poster board. Use a hole punch to
punch a hole in the center of one side. Tie one end of a 4" piece of yarn to
the leg of a chair sitting on carpet. String the crab on the yarn. Position
the crab shape so that the hole is away from the chair leg. Let the children
take turns holding the free end of the yarn about 6" off the floor and
raising and lowering it slightly to make the crab crawl.