Island Explorers Curriculum Home


Unit 2

Lesson Plan 1

Lesson Plan 2

Lesson Plan 3

Lesson Plan 4

Lesson Plan 5

Lesson Plan 6

Lesson Plan 7

Concepts/Objectives | Vocabulary/Background | Activity | Extension


Lesson Plan 4






Phytoplankton are the primary food source and producers of oxygen in the ocean. This connects to the study of photosynthesis, food chain and life cycles, water, ocean water with fresh water, polluted water with non-polluted water).
Compare zooplankton with phytoplankton.

Sort and count organisms in a quadrat of the sample. Journal observations and record on a graph.

Language Arts:
Students create a haiku describing one of their favorite microscopic organisms.
Students generate fictional stories about the life of a plankton.

Social Studies:
Who needs plankton? How do humans use plankton? How do humans adversely affect the plankton population? Can plankton adversely affect humans or other populations?

Students paste tissue paper representations of plankton on a circle of white paper representative of the petri dish. The tissue paper is layered to simulate how the plankton overlaps in an actual sample.
Students make pipe cleaner mobiles of various microscopic organisms they observed.

Concepts/Objectives | Vocabulary/Background | Activity | Extension