More exciting news this week! Marine Science for Kids: Workbook 2 (ages 7+) is now available! As mentioned before, I’ve been spending an unusual amount of time indoors this summer, but I have now finished ‘workbook 2’ – the follow-on for workbook 1. There’s no official ‘marine science’ curriculum for children of any age. My philosophy when writing these workbooks was ‘if I had children – how would I teach them marine science’. If you have young children keen to learn about the oceans then I think these workbooks are a great place to start (as well as some fun days out obviously!).
This workbook goes over some of what was mentioned in workbook 1 before building on previous topics. Children can use the workbook without having done workbook 1 or simply practice what they’ve learnt before learning something new. But there’s plenty of brand-new information as well, given it is twice the size (100 pages!). There are new topics such as ‘weather and climate’ and ‘prehistoric ocean’, as well as new concepts such as life cycles. The age range for this workbook, 7-9 years, can have a lot of progressions academically so I’ve included three ‘project spaces’; story time, prehistoric fact file and animal research project, to give older children the chance to really get into something.
What’s in this post?
The workbooks content
This is a secular science workbook. It’s 100 pages long and it has four units;
Oceanography
Oceanography is split into three parts; One Big Ocean, Weather and Climate and Ocean Exploration. One big ocean introduces the five ocean basins and ocean features. Weather and Climate, applies what children have learned about the weather on land over into the marine environment. Ocean Exploration looks at how we explore the ocean and what we might see.
Marine Biology
Marine Biology, the largest unit, is also split into three parts; Plants and Plant(ish), Ocean Animals and Ocean Ecosystems. As I said in my previous blog post - ocean plants are a difficult subject to teach. The only ‘true plants’ in the oceans are seagrasses but that would be a very short section! I’ve also included the seaweeds and phytoplankton here due to their similarities with plants. This section looks at what plants need and their life cycles. I hate to admit it, but ocean animals are probably what most of the kids are here for. The ocean animals section covers the animal basics – their groups, what they eat and life cycles. Ocean Ecosystems build on Ocean Habitats in workbook 1, looking at what an ecosystem is and food chains. The section ends with an ocean animals research project.
People and the Oceans
As with workbook 1, this is probably the most important part of the workbook – linking the oceans back to ourselves. A challenging but important idea for young kids to grapple with. There are three sections in this unit; The Earth is Our Home, Ocean Conservation and Ocean History. The Earth is Our Home covers how we might interact with the ocean on a daily basis – visiting the beach and travelling at sea – as well as writing a story relating to the ocean. Ocean Conservation builds on visiting the beach with behaving responsibly at the beach, and what’s in the ocean. Ocean History includes a famous historical event – the Titanic – and a famous explorer – James Cook.
Prehistoric Oceans
Completely new to this workbook, Prehistoric Oceans was the most enjoyable section for me to research! Made up of two sections; Prehistoric Marine Animals and a Prehistoric Fact File, this unit introduces the idea of pre-history, how pre-historic animals lived as well as getting children to research the more well-known prehistoric animals (cough* megalodon cough*).
How to use the workbook
Obviously, you can use the workbook however you wish. It is currently only available from amazon as a workbook to order. But will soon be available as a digital download vis my Etsy shop.
There are tick boxes by every section so children can tick (or shade in) a square when they’ve finished a bit of the workbook. This should allow you to easily see any progress which has been made. 100 pages is a lot of work so children might want to complete the workbook over a longer time.
Elements of the workbook are compatible with commonly taught subjects such as geography (oceanography unit), history (the ocean history section) and science (the marine biology unit). As well as with other popular learning activities – story time, for example – or themes, prehistoric oceans would go well with a dinosaur theme. It could be an idea to wait until after these have been covered in lessons and use these in an ocean-themed study unit or to include them at a time which suits your children’s learning as you go along. Any ideas on how this works best for you please let me know!
Helpful Resources
I have a list of resources and videos in the learning zone. If you are an educator and you would like an in-depth resource for developing a full-ocean curriculum for all ages then I would recommend Ocean Literacy, and if you’re focusing on a ‘study unit’ style of learning then I would recommend World Ocean Day for Schools. The resources are broken down by unit and hopefully, they can help you build wider lessons to complement the workbook.
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