Beach visits – habitats and food webs
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.
Ngārimu Bay
Ngārimu Bay is located in the Firth of Thames. The vegetation and rocky and sandy substrates offer a variety of habitats for beach-dwelling organisms.
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
Catch my drift – Connected
Who’s eating who? – Connected
Marine Metre Squared – citizen science
Resource curations
Activity ideas
Useful links
Marine Metre Squared provides a wide range of great resources to use before, during and after beach visits.
