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In this section activities are arranged alphabetically. Click on the activity title to get to the individual activity page.

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A Hurricane’s Storm Surge Affects Our Estuaries
Students construct a coastal landmass from sand and add features such as tidal creeks and barrier islands. They then add varying amounts of water to see the effects of storm surge on coastal land masses.
Subject: Ocean Geology, Human Impact Grade: 5 - adult Duration: 20 - 60 min
Ocean Literacy Principle: #1, #3, #6, #7
Beach Buckets
Visitors explore a bucket of sand and beach drift and debris, sort the items using observable characteristics and use a model to show how sand could be composed of items found on a beach. They also infer how the beach drift might have traveled to the beach.
Subject: Ocean Physics, Ocean Geology Grade: K to adult Duration: 30 - 45 min
Ocean Literacy Principle: #1, #2
Causes and Effects of Melting Ice
This activity introduces the concept of density-driven currents (thermohaline circulation) and how they are affected by climate change. Participants use colored ice cubes, water, and salt to explore density as it relates to salinity, leading to an understanding of the impact of glacial melt on sea level rise.
Subject: Ocean Physics Grade: 5 to adult Duration: 30 - 120 min
Ocean Literacy Principle: #1, #2, #6
Don’t Stop for Hitchhikers!
This activity involves role playing and props to engage students in understanding the concept of invasive species and how they travel. The activity is best done in a large indoor or outdoor space.
Subject: Ocean Biology, Human Impact Grade: 4 - 8 Duration: 45 min
Ocean Literacy Principle: #5
Exploration Tanks
Learners observe and interact with marine animals in a touch tank. The educator/facilitator helps guide the learners’ observations and encourages them to generate questions and find the answers to their own questions as they continue to explore.
Subject: Ocean Biology, Inquiry Grade: K - 12 Duration: 30 - 45 min
Ocean Literacy Principle: #5
Exploring the Ocean with Robots
Investigate buoyancy and how ocean gliders work with this activity. Using “gliders” that they make from plastic syringes, plus Cartesian bottles and plastic bubbles, students explore characteristics of buoyancy by adjusting amounts of air and salt water.
Subject: Ocean Physics Grade: 6 - 12 Duration: 45 min
Ocean Literacy Principle: #7
Fish Tales
This activity introduces concepts of habitat, morphology and adaptation. Students are shown photographs of a variety of fish, followed by a discussion that explores fish characteristics and adaptation.
Subject: Ocean Biology Grade: 1 - 6 Duration: 15 - 60 min
Ocean Literacy Principle: #5
Getting the Big Picture: Reading the Ocean Stories Satellites Tell
Students learn how satellite images can be used to learn about ocean conditions and phytoplankton and learn to generate questions about ocean conditions, processes, and life.
Subject: Ocean Physics, Ocean Biology, Ocean Chemistry, Inquiry Grade: 6 - 12 Duration: 1 to 3 x 50 min
Ocean Literacy Principle: #3, #5, #7
Got Seaweed?
Learners explore seaweed samples. They use different criteria to sort the seaweeds, and then are guided to sort the seaweed based on color. Visitors also may observe what happens when powdered seaweed is mixed with water, and predict why we might add such seaweed products to food found in our cupboards. They then find out which foods do contain seaweed by checking the ingredients lists of some common foods.
Subject: Ocean Biology, Ocean Chemistry, Human Impact Grade: K - 12 Duration: 30 - 45 min
Ocean Literacy Principle: #5, #6
Growing Up in the Ocean
This activity introduces students to the complex life cycles of common marine invertebrates and allows students to compare and contrast body plans while learning about adaptations that larvae and adults have made to their respective habitats. Throughout the lesson, students practice skills important for scientific inquiry: making observations, drawing what they see, asking and answering questions, and learning to use scientific tools such as microscopes.
Subject: Ocean Biology, Inquiry Grade: 3 - 6 Duration: 2 x 45 min / 90 min
Ocean Literacy Principle: #5
How is Coastal Temperature Influenced By the Great Lakes and the Ocean?
This activity explores how bodies of water can serve as a heat source or sink at different times and how proximity to water moderates climate along the coast. The activity’s combination of laboratory investigation, map study, and graphing applies different learning styles and provides practice in important science processes.
Subject: Ocean Physics Grade: 7 - 8 Duration: 45 - 60 mins
Ocean Literacy Principle: #3
Improving Oil Spill Response: Plotting the Currents in Prince William Sound
Students find and use data from the Alaska Ocean Observing System (AOOS) to plot the tracks of drifters used by scientists as real-time data to compare with computer predictions during a field experiment to test a circulation model for Prince William Sound, Alaska. They apply their knowledge to predicting the path of an oil spill and search & rescue.
Subject: Ocean Physics, Ocean Chemistry, Human Impact Grade: 6 - 8 Duration: 3 x 45 mins
Ocean Literacy Principle: #1, #7
Introduction to Ocean Zones
Students will learn to identify and describe different zones of the ocean and the organisms that live in each zone.
Subject: Ocean Physics, Ocean Biology Grade: K - 12 Duration: 55 min
Ocean Literacy Principle: #1, #2, #4, #5, #7
Litter Matching Game
By matching descriptions to images, students identify marine debris items, leading to discussion about the effects of marine debris and how it can be reduced.
Subject: Ocean Biology, Ocean Chemistry, Human Impact Grade: 5 - adult Duration: 20 - 30 min
Ocean Literacy Principle: #1, #6, #7
Melting Ice
This activity explores density, convection, stratification, and by inference the melting of ice bergs. Students are allowed an opportunity to make a hypothesis, test their hypothesis, and explain their observations.
Subject: Ocean Physics, Inquiry Grade: 6 - 12 Duration: 30 - 45 mins
Ocean Literacy Principle: #1, #6
My Place in Puget Sound
In this investigative questions curriculum, students explore the relationship between their everyday practices and chemicals in the local waters.
Subject: Ocean Chemistry, Human Impact Grade: 7 - 8 Duration: 2 x 50 min
Ocean Literacy Principle: #1, #6
Ocean Home
A kinetic game exploring the effects of climate change on marine species distribution. In this activity, students will model, on a human-sized board game, how changes in water temperature may affect fisheries, learning concepts related to physiology, climate change, and sea surface temperature.
Subject: Ocean Physics, Ocean Biology Grade: 4 - 9 Duration: 45 mins
Ocean Literacy Principle: #3, #5, #6
Outfit a Scientist
In the Testable Question Relay, student teams race to “outfit a scientist” by correctly categorizing questions as testable or untestable and earning scientific tools. This activity assists students in recognizing the components of good hypotheses and addresses associated misconceptions.
Subject: Inquiry Grade: 4 Duration: 45 min
Plankton Feeding
This activity provides a hands-on experience with a scale model, a relatively high viscosity (a property of a fluid), the interactions of an organism with its environment, and feeding behaviors.
Subject: Ocean Physics, Ocean Biology Grade: 4 - adult Duration: 30 min
Ocean Literacy Principle: #5, #7
Plankton Races
Students learn about buoyancy, density and surface area. Students also learn about biodiversity and the relationship between the structure and function of organisms.
Subject: Ocean Physics, Ocean Biology Grade: 4 - 8 Duration: 45 - 90 min
Ocean Literacy Principle: #5
Sand Activity
Learners observe a variety of sand samples with the naked eye and up close (with hand lenses and microscopes). They investigate what their sand is composed of and make inferences about the processes and forces that made it.
Subject: Ocean Geology Grade: K to adult Duration: 30 - 45 min
Ocean Literacy Principle: #2
Teaching Physical Concepts in Oceanography - Chapter 1: DENSITY
Density is a fundamental property of matter. Many processes are caused by or reflect differences in the densities of adjacent water masses or differences in densities between fluids and solids. The following set of activities is designed to review density, practice density calculations, and highlight links to oceanic processes.
1.1 - Will it Float? 1.4 - Effects of Temperature and Salinity on Density and Stratification
1.2 - Can a Can Float? 1.5 - Effect of Stratification on Mixing
1.3 - Densities of Oceanic and Continental Crusts 1.6 - Convection under Ice
Subject: Ocean Physics Grade: 7 - 12 Duration: approximately 20 min each
Teaching Physical Concepts in Oceanography - Chapter 2: PRESSURE
This chapter contains a series of activities that allows students to examine pressure from different angles. The significance of concepts such as hydrostatic pressure, compressibility of gases under pressure (i.e., Boyle’s Law), and pressure in moving fluids (i.e., Bernoulli’s Principle) to processes in the ocean is emphasized.
2.1 - Bed of Nails 2.5 - Shrinking Balloons
2.2 - Perception of Weight 2.6 - Compressibility of Gases
2.3 - Ready, Set, Squirt 2.7 - Demonstration of Bernoulli's Principle
2.4 - Manometer and Equilibrium Tubes
Subject: Ocean Physics Grade: 7 - 12 Duration: approximately 20 min each
Teaching Physical Concepts in Oceanography - Chapter 3: BUOYANCY
This set of activities is designed to help students better understand the underlying principles of buoyancy. Research conducted at the University of Washington found that many science and engineering majors lacked an understanding of buoyancy and were not able to predict or explain the floating and sinking behaviors of different objects (Loverude et al., 2003).
3.1 - Mayday! 3.3 - Designing Floats
3.2 - Archimedes Ball 3.4 - Cartesian Diver
Subject: Ocean Physics Grade: 7 - 12 Duration: approximately 20 min each
Teaching Physical Concepts in Oceanography - Chapter 4: HEAT & TEMPERATURE
The purpose of this set of activities is to review basic concepts of thermal physics and to highlight applications to ocean processes. It is recommended that these laboratory activities be completed over two class periods.
4.1 - Radiative Heat Transfer and Absorption of Radiation 4.5 - Heat Flow and Latent Heat
4.2 - Conduction 4.6 - Sling Psychrometer (Hygrometer)
4.3 - Convection 4.7 - Thermal Expansion
4.4 - Heat Pack 4.8 - Reversing Rods
Subject: Ocean Physics Grade: 7 - 12 Duration: approximately 20 min each
Teaching Physical Concepts in Oceanography - Chapter 5: GRAVITY WAVES
The purpose of these activities are to familiarize students with wave motion in general and gravity waves in particular. Concepts such as resonance, natural frequency, and seiche are demonstrated. Other topics that are emphasized during class discussion are measurements and their statistics, and dimensional analysis.
5.1 - Wave Speed and Water Depth 5.3 - Buoyancy Oscillations
5.2 - Internal Waves
Subject: Ocean Physics Grade: 7 - 12 Duration: approximately 20 min each
The Carbon Cycle Game
A kinetic game in which students take a trip through some of the reservoirs of the carbon cycle. Students visit stations representing stops along the carbon cycle, collecting beads along the way. They then diagram and compare their journeys, learning about biogeochemical processes, photosynthesis and respiration.
Subject: Ocean Chemistry Grade: 8 - 12 Duration: 20 - 45 min
Ocean Literacy Principle: #2, #3
The Great Plankton Race
Participants are challenged to design a planktonic organism that will neither float like a cork nor sink like a stone. This exercise is designed to give students an opportunity to apply observations and concepts in an engaging way. It is not a biomechanics exercise, and thus Reynolds Number issues are ignored.
Subject: Ocean Physics, Ocean Biology Grade: 1 - 12 Duration: 40 min
Ocean Literacy Principle: #1, #4, #5, #6
Who Can Harvest a Walleye?
This activity focuses on interactions within Earth systems and the effects of human activities as students build a biomass pyramid. This game shows how factors affecting lower sections of the food chain can affect higher levels as well. The pyramid in this game is a biomass type because it is based on the weight of the organisms in kilograms.
Subject: Ocean Biology, Human Impact Grade: 3 - 6 Duration: 45 min
Ocean Literacy Principle: #6
What is in the Water?
Students will use open inquiry to learn about the process of science as well as gain experience regarding the Law of Conservation of Mass, dissolution, and density.
Subject: Ocean Physics, Ocean Chemistry, Inquiry Grade: 4 - 8 Duration: 45 - 90 min
Ocean Literacy Principle: #1, #6
What is Light?
This activity explores proprieties of light that occur within marine ecosystems - incandescence, fluorescence, phosphorescence, and chemo-luminescence - using light sticks, flashlights, fluorescent markers and stickers, and Pyrocystis fusiformis dinoflagellate culture.
Subject: Ocean Physics, Ocean Biology, Ocean Chemistry Grade: 6 - 8 Duration: 60 - 90 min
Ocean Literacy Principle: #5