Welcome to the Teacher Toolbox! Here you will find a broad variety of instructional resources to compliment your students' viewing of Saving a Species: Our One Ocean. Use these materials to construct lesson plans, spark discussion, and inspire your students to become active participants in preserving the world we share with wildlife.

See "Our One Ocean" Video Series

Reference

• Biodiversity Infobook
• Baleen Whales Infobook
• Bony Fish Infobook
• Bottlenose Dolphins Infobook
• Coral & Coral Reefs Infobook
• Sea Turtles Infobook
• Tidepools Infobook
• SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund
• Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute
• Rising Tide
• Thank You Ocean
• World Wildlife Fund
• Ocean Connectors
• Marineland Right Whale Project
• NOAA Ocean & Coasts Education Resources

Vocabulary

• adaptation: a modification of an organism that makes it more suited to live in its environment.
• biomass: all living material in the area.
• conservation: taking care of our environment by wisely managing its resource.
• ecosystem: a unit of plants, animals, and nonliving components of an environment that interact.
• endangered: in danger of becoming extinct.
• environment: the total surroundings and forces that act upon a living thing. These surroundings include physical factors such as light, heat, water, weather, and structure of the earth as well as plants and animals.
• extinct: no longer existing.
• food chain: a simple straight-line diagram that shows "who eats whom" in an ecosystem.
• food web: a diagram that shows the many complex interconnections of "who eats whom" in an ecosystem.
• habitat: the place where an animal lives.
• interconnected: to be meaningfully or complexly related or joined.
• natural resources: materials or substances such as minerals, forests, water, and fertile land that occur in nature and can be used for economic gain.
• over-fishing: catching more fish than the species' population can replace through natural breeding rates.
• pollution: harmful elements that alter or affect an environment in a negative way, such as chemicals that poison water supplies or trash that clutters the ocean.
• population: a group of plants or animals of the same species that live in the same area and have the opportunity to breed with each other.
• predator: an animal that eats other animals.
• prey: v; to hunt and eat other animals. n; an animal eaten by another animal.
• sustainable: able to be maintained at a certain rate or level.
• threatened: facing possible threat of extinction, but not facing as great a threat as an endangered species. Threatened species may become endangered.

Resources

Activity Descriptions | K-4

• A Slick Operation
• Create a Coral Polyp
• Design a Fish
• Fingerprint Fish
• Fresh Floats
• Growing Coral
• No Place to Hide
• Number Cards
• Save My World
• Swift of Foot & Flipper
• Telling Stories
• The Reef Zone
• The Weight of Water
• Who Lives Here

Activity Descriptions | 5-8

• Beach Survey
• Bioaccumulation Relay
• Bycatch Game
• Habitat Corners
• Mapping the Ocean
• Mighty Migrators
• No Place To Hide
• Suited for Survival
• Survival Factors
• The Reef Region
• Water on the Move
• Weave a Food Web

Activity Descriptions | 9-12

• 60 Seconds to Save the Sea
• How Do You Glow
• Lagoon Debate

Teacher's Guides

• Ocean Discovery | Pre-K
• Science Activities | K-4
• Saving the Wild | 5-8
• Saving the Wild | 9-12

Pre & Post-Viewing Questions

Sustainable Seafood

• Fish provide the largest source of protein consumed by humans. What would happen if we ran out of fish?
• Define the word sustainable.

Oil Spills

• Research historic oil spills such as the Deep Water Horizon explosion and the Exxon Valdez oil spill and describe what happened to the oil and how it affected animal populations.

Thank You Ocean

• What percentage of the Earth's surface is covered by the ocean?
• The ocean is a vital resource for humans. Name some of the ways humans depend on and use the ocean's resources.

Dolphins and Sea Turtles in Need

• The dolphins in the Indian River Lagoon experienced an unusual mortality event. What information did the scientists not have when this die-off started to occur? What are they doing to research this information? Why is this information important?
• What happened to the sea turtles in the Indian River Lagoon during the cold snap of 2010? What did SeaWorld do to help these sea turtles in need? What information was gained from this effort?

Make a World of Difference

• What does the term "interconnected" mean? Give an example of how humans and the ocean are interconnected.
• Give examples of every-day things each of us can do that will protect and preserve the ocean.

Coral Reefs

• Coral reefs contain abundant marine life. What percentage of the earth's fish species are believed to found in coral reef habitats?
• What percentage of marine species are directly or indirectly dependent on coral reefs?

Stewardship: Citizen Scientists

• Marine research is critical to understanding the ocean and its inhabitants. Describe what the citizen scientists working with the Marineland Right Whale Project are doing to help right whales in the Atlantic Ocean.
• Inspired during the Ocean Connectors program, students in California and Mexico are learning about animal migrations and how they can join forces to protect and preserve vital marine habitats. Why is it important to work together to achieve conservation goals.