Salmon Resources


In Middle and High School
, information within each of the Disciplinary Core Ideas is becoming more specific as the different domains of science are each taught in their own classroom.  Students begin to develop an understanding of how things work at the cellular, atomic, and genetic levels.  There are still opportunities for field- and community-based science, however.  Here are some resources for middle and high school teachers on the topic of salmon:

Growth and Development

  • Both Making a Redd and Teaching Kids About Fish Migration provide opportunities for students to engage in the engineering design process while learning about some of the behaviors adult salmon engage in to reproduce.
  • Salmon Spotting is another resource for teaching about reproductive behavior while giving students the opportunity to practice and hone their observation and analysis skills.

Food Webs

Habitat

Student-facing resources:

Growth and Development

Food Webs

Habitat


Shellfish Resources

In middle and high school, information within each of the Disciplinary Core Ideas is becoming more specific as the different domains of science are each taught in their own classroom. Students begin to develop an understanding of how things work at the cellular, atomic, and genetic levels. There are still opportunities for field- and community-based science, however. Some resources for middle and high school teachers on the topic of shellfish include the following, organized by Next Generation Science Standards – Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI):

Structure and Function/ Adaptation

  • Education on the Half shell - Understanding a Dichotomous Key Students learn how to use a dichotomous key using a variety of seashells.
  • Shape of Life: Shell Shocked Students study the elaborately whorled, sculpted, and ornamented shells of gastropods not as objects of beauty, but as artifacts born of an evolutionary tradeoff: They are costly to build and carry around, yet essential for survival in a dangerous ocean. The high school version introduces the concept of an evolutionary arms race (coevolution) and reinforces the Darwinian principle of “form follows function.” The middle school version emphasizes the concepts of animal adaptation and predator avoidance. In both versions, there is a hands-on activity with shells, and written analysis interpreting the fossil record.
  • Shape of Life: The Blue Mussel: A Not So Typical Mollusk Lab dissection of a representative of Class Bivalvia. Supported by several shape of life segments, students interpret bivalve adaptations as a radical case of divergent evolution: A simple ancestral snail with a mobile lifestyle, single dome[1]shaped shell, bilateral symmetry, and a head (“cephalization”) transformed into a headless, double[1]shelled, sedentary filter-feeder whose bilateral form is obscure.
  • Oyster Reef in the Classroom – A Hands-On Laboratory Approach A hands-on lesson that requires pre-planning. The content focuses on Chesapeake Bay but can easily be modified for Washington estuaries. Students could be enlisted to create a new dichotomous key for our region.
  • Education on the Half shell - Creating a Dichotomous Key Students create a dichotomous key to identify fossil oyster shells.
  •  Education on the Half shell - Writing a Descriptive Essay Students write a descriptive essay about a seashell.
  • Eastern Oyster Education This group of lessons focuses on structure and function of oysters, so it can be easily adapted to our local varieties.
Growth and Development

  • Why Does the Green Crab Love Climate Change? This is an exploration of the impacts of climate change on green crab populations. The video example compares impacts on lobster, but Dungeness crab could be used as a comparison instead.
  •  Shape of Life: The Oyster: A Not So Typical Mollusc Lab dissection of a representative of Class Bivalvia. Supported by several shape of life segments, students interpret bivalve adaptations as a radical case of divergent evolution: A simple ancestral snail with a mobile lifestyle, single dome-shaped shell, bilateral symmetry, and a head (“cephalization”) transformed into a headless, double-shelled, sedentary filter-feeder whose bilateral form is obscure.
Food webs

  • 13 Moons: First Foods and Resources Curriculum This is a full-year curriculum created by the Swinomish Tribal Community that focuses on food sovereignty and health. There are three lessons that address food webs: the Moon When the Frog Talks, the Moon of Salmonberry, and the Moon of the Elk Mating Cry.

Structure of Matter

  •  Ocean Acidification Experiment: Impacts of carbonated seawater on mussel and oyster shells Students will run experiments exposing shells with seawater at different levels of acidity representing current and potential future ocean conditions.

Ecosystem Dynamics

  • 13 Moons: First Foods and Resources Curriculum There are three lessons that address ecosystem dynamics: Moon When the Frog Talks, Moon of Salmonberry, and Moon of the Salal Berry.
  • Middle School Oyster Unit The lesson sequence will engage middle school students in a local environmental issue by showing them the historical context of how the eastern oyster populations and the Chesapeake Bay watershed have changed since the time of Captain John Smith. Students learn about water quality parameters and have opportunities to investigate the effect of land use on water quality and ultimately the oyster populations and the reef ecosystems. Finally, students are asked to learn about the effect of management practices on water quality and asked to suggest ways that these can be used to increase the health of the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem and its water supply through healthy oyster reef systems.
  • High School Oyster Unit This series of high school lessons build on in-depth issue analysis skills as students investigate a local environmental issue that they are concerned about and want to investigate. These lessons are location-specific but some of the issues are similar to those in our region and learning activities from these modules could be adapted to our context.
  • The Great Oyster Mystery In this activity, students read oyster abundance graphs to describe how young oyster abundance in Aransas and Copano Bays responded to short-term environmental changes. Students then access and print monthly average salinity and rainfall data for a two-year period during which oyster abundance in Aransas and Copano Bays declined and then rebounded. Finally, students describe and interpret the relationship between several abiotic and biotic conditions in the estuary, including salinity, rainfall, oyster abundance, and the abundance of parasites and predators that attack oysters.

List out student resources organized by DCI:

Structure and Function / Adaptation

Growth & Development

Structure of Matter

Ecosystem Dynamics

Human Impacts on Earth Systems