The beach provides each type of living thing found there with food and shelter. This activity involves students in researching and then observing a range of organisms to understand the interconnected nature of ecosystems.
This activity supports students to engage in purposeful research before visiting a local beach environment and then to apply it to support close scientific observation. On return to school, students can use their evidence to position their organism within a food web of the overall ecosystem.
By the end of this activity, students should be able to:
- identify where and how an organism is positioned within an ecosystem diagram
- accurately describe an organism's ecological niche including food, shelter, any known adaptations and survival challenges
- make close observations of their organism and record these for reporting back.
Download the Word file (see link below).
Related content
Articles
- Building Science Concepts: Tidal communities, includes the Tidal communities interactive.
- Māori mō te ara o Hinekirikiri – kuputaka – glossary
- Marine habitats
- Habitats in the Bay of Plenty
- Life on a reef
- Adapting to marine habitats
- Catch my drift – Connected
- Who’s eating who? – Connected
- Marine Metre Squared – citizen science
Resource curations
Activity ideas
Useful links
Marine Metre Squared provides great resources to use before, during and after beach visits:
