This activity will help students understand algal blooms. They will devise their own experiments to test the effects of nutrients on algal growth, or younger students may follow the steps outlined in a sample activity which is provided. Students will be reminded that they need to have controls and replicates in their experiments. As a result of this activity, students will come to understand the requirements ... Full description.

While engaged in this activity students will explore phytoplankton, the food of tiny marine animals, particularly krill. Students will prepare a hay infusion in two identical glass aquarium tanks or a 1-liter glass jar and expose one to 24 hours of continuous light, and the other for only four hours during the school day, with all light blocked off by opaque material during the remaining hours. They ... Full description.

This lesson teaches students that traits are usually favored by natural selection only when they result in more reproductively successful offspring. Students go out onto the school lawn and play the role of birds, picking up toothpick stick worms which have been previously scattered in equal numbers of green-stained and unstained. Birds are chased away before the worm population drops too low. Back ... Full description.