NOAA Sea to Sky: Education resource database

Monitor National Marine Sanctuary offers a variety of free resources for educators. Resources include social studies activities, as well as science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) activities, lesson plans, and guides. Each section below is filled with STEM activities, lesson plans, and games. Explore the Civil War and USS Monitor, World War I, World War II, Shipwrecks and STEM, Wrecks as Reefs, the Outer Banks Maritime Heritage Trail, and more.

How do human choices regarding the consumption and disposal of plastics impact ecosystems and our communities and what actions can we take to minimize those impacts? The Wave of Plastic Project includes five lessons to tackle this question. This unit helps students make sense of the core ideas related to issues of plastic pollution (particularly those relevant to the Chesapeake Bay watershed) by engaging in authentic interdisciplinary practice culminating in comprehensive, student-driven, informed action projects. 
 

This collection of six separate lessons includes tutorial videos for each themed lesson, except ecological field modeling.

1. Density dynamics: Experiment by creating four model bodies of water and observe how they compare. 
2. Ecological field monitoring: Get into the field and investigate the ecosystems in your local community using field equipment.
3. Glaciers: Investigate how topography came to be through glacial activity 33,000 years ago. Use geologic and physical tests to uncover the evidence left behind by the Laurentide Ice Sheet. Track and hunt down the path laid by ice giants of the past.  
4. Marine debris & microplastics: Discover how marine debris impacts the environment as you experiment with buoyancy and design a model ocean with circular currents.
5. Watersheds: Explore how we impact our water systems and the watersheds that sustain our population. Create a model coastal community and observe how pollutants travel within a watershed
6. Weather & climate: Explore the differences between weather and climate, look at real-time NOAA weather and climate data, experiment with sea level rise, and create coastal resiliency models.

Published by New York Sea Grant offsite link, Plastic pollution and you is a 15-lesson curriculum focused on marine debris sources, impacts, and solutions. These hands-on lessons and activities help students learn the different types of plastics, their impact on marine and freshwater ecosystems, and about ways to address and prevent plastic pollution. Interdisciplinary elements of this curriculum include policy research, environmental justice, and effective outreach and communication strategies.

This guide is designed for educators in both formal and informal education situations. It is a regional introduction to three main categories of marine debris: litter; derelict or abandoned boats; and lost or abandoned commercial and recreational fishing gear.

The From Shore to State House curriculum was the product of a project with the University of Hartford to create an open source, replicable, college-level service learning course to improve knowledge, lead outreach, inform policy, and inspire change on the issue of marine debris. The curriculum guides students to prevent marine debris and develop policy alternatives to discuss with state legislators.

Marine debris is a pervasive, global problem and one that is felt locally in the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI). Through a NOAA Marine Debris Program prevention grant, the University of the Virgin Islands(link is external) adapted and revised marine debris lessons for USVI, including Oregon Marine Debris STEAMSS, Turning the Tide on Trash, and Talking Trash and Taking Action. The curriculum was co-created with the input of educators from USVI who participated in workshops and provided input following in-class use. The curriculum also includes 15 spotlights, which highlight USVI-specific marine debris research, local researchers, community-led prevention efforts, and natural disaster impacts from marine debris.

In this project, students focus on one marine debris object commonly found on Oregon beaches, research its original purpose, user, and life cycle, and then propose targeted solutions to prevent this particular item from becoming marine debris. The webpage contains three 5E lessons centered around the anchoring phenomena of yellow rope fragments, plastic shotgun wads, or balloons on the beach, and include resources and a template to create similar lessons for five other marine debris objects. This project is supported by supported by funding from the NOAA National Sea Grant Office, the NOAA Marine Debris Program, and Oregon Sea Grant.

This curriculum introduces ocean circulation, marine ecology, and human impacts with a focus on marine debris for students in K-5th grade. Student activities meet the math and science benchmarks and "Common Core" standards for the State of Hawai'i Department of Education for each grade level. The curriculum includes presentations, lesson plans, hands-on activities, and vocab sheets.

Explore an assortment of formal curricula for grades 1-12 from the NOAA Marine Debris Program. All curricula are available for download and print!