Description

What is included in your Ocean Activities for Kindergarten to 2nd Grade Kit?

• “What’s a Watershed?” MWEE Lesson and Slideshow Presentation
• Ocean Debris Science Kit and Activity
• K-2 Raindrop in a Watershed Skit
• K-5 MWEE Watershed Diorama Activity
• K-2 STEAM Activity: Plastic Down the River

What you will receive:

1. Ocean Debris STEM Kit: Marine debris collected by Ocean Blue Project volunteers at various beaches around the United States including Oregon, Florida, California, and Hawaii. This kit directly correlates with the accompanying lessons and activities. Your Ocean Debris STEM Kit will be shipped directly to you within 30 days of your order.
2. Meaningful Watershed Educational Experiences (MWEEs) Watershed lesson plan and slideshow presentation. This slideshow presentation will be sent to you in a link, that will be editable, for you to add a map of your personal location.
3. K-2 Raindrop in a Watershed Skit. This is a printable PDF and is a fun skit, for your classroom to interact and perform, to learn more about rain and your local watershed.
4. K-5 MWEE Watershed Diorama Activity.This will be a printable PDF and is a fun learning activity for grades K-2.
5. Plastic Down the RIver activity PDF.

Please see below for a more in depth description on what you will receive in this purchase, the learner outcomes and the options you will be choosing from.

Grade Levels: Kindergarten through 2nd grade.

Subjects: Science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics

Formats: Downloadable printable PDF documents, 1 physical item mailed to your address (Ocean Debris STEM Kit, and a Powerpoint Slideshow Presentation sent to you at the email your provide, and will be editable on Microsoft Powerpoint or Google Slides.

By purchasing these activities, you are helping your students gain fundamental environmental awareness with hands-on Ocean Debris STEM Kits and practice creative expression. These activities are helping children grasp the relationships between the water cycle and watersheds, and the relationships between humans and the ocean. Through performing, observing, creating, conversations, interactions and presentations – we have compiled fun and impactful ocean activities for inspiring your young learners to become stewards of the planet!

Students will understand…

• What a watershed is.
• Everyone Lives in and is connected to a watershed.
• There are smaller watersheds within larger watersheds and multiple watersheds form a large basin.
• Natural physical features define watersheds.
• Local watersheds are connected to the ocean through waterways and the water cycle
• We can each make a positive difference for the ocean right from our own neighborhood.
• How plastic doesn’t disappear after we throw it away, and be able to fully comprehend ocean debris by seeing it and interacting with it, firsthand.

Students will be able to…

• Define a watershed and identify local watershed, waterbodies, and basin
• Investigate the states and other boundaries that make up their local watershed
• Analyze the role that local geographic features like mountains play in their local watershed
• Locate key rivers in their local watershed and discuss how they’re connected to the ocean

Ocean Blue Project is excited to offer you fun ocean activities for kindergarten through 2nd grade students to experience environmental awareness, ocean education and creative expression. We have designed short activities for our Blue Schools Program and STEAM Curriculum for kindergarten through 2nd grade students. These Ocean Activities provide a less intensive experience that still provides benefits for all age groups and have been designed specifically for kindergarten through second graders. These activities are great for classroom settings, community programs, self directed learning, at home learners, virtual workshops and many other educational or recreational settings.

Upon purchase, you will receive a printable PDF with clear step-by-step instructions on how to facilitate the activities. Each activity will be simple and fun, yet engaging with rewardable outcomes for your learners! Consider this your one stop shop, to gain all the tools you need to facilitate engaging activities to help foster and encourage new environmental stewards of our planet! Your purchase will not only help the planet by creating our next generation of eco-minded advocates, but also help fund our ocean pollution prevention and education goals.
Upon payment you will receive your Ocean Debris STEM Kit and four activities with this purchase, which will include an engineering focused activity, a performing arts and science activity, and an arts and crafts focused project. Each activity can be used on its own, or as a series that builds off from each other. Some benefits and outcomes of the Blue Schools Program included in these activities are; hands-on experiential learning, leadership skills, integrated arts techniques, science education, and creative content developed by environmental experts.

You will also be sent a slideshow presentation to present to your class. It will be a customizable template that can be edited in powerpoint or slides, so you can add your own maps + location, to show more direct influence of your local watershed. Although it is for K-2, we recommend it mostly for first and second graders.

Ocean Debris STEM Kit and Activity

This ocean activities kit includes a hands-on Ocean Debris STEM Kit with plastic, styrofoam, rope, and other items found on U.S. beaches washed up from the ocean and recovered by Ocean Blue volunteers. In addition, there are four lesson plans versatile for all age groups but we believe are best suited for kindergarten through second graders ranging from 5 – 8 years old.
This Ocean Debris STEM Kit shows the importance of recycling and sustainability, by giving a first hand example of how plastic degrades in the ocean, and what it looks like when it’s found on shore. We included fun and educational activities that are versatile for many age groups to go along with this powerful learning tool that will undoubtedly create memories to last a lifetime.

Watershed Diorama Activity

Also included is an arts and crafts activity to strengthen creativity and artistic ability while educating students on watershed by creating their own diorama. These two exercises are perfect for young artists to express themselves through color theory, 2d + 3d composition, and storytelling through handmade objects. This activity will guide you on how to facilitate a demonstration on how to create a watershed diorama that your students will be able to present to the class in a show and tell format, and bring home to enjoy with their families!

Raindrop in Watershed Skit

This activity will be a hands-on, interactive approach to teach our youngest stewards about the components of the watershed cycle and how we are all connected to our one world Ocean. Each student will actively represent a raindrop taking a different path through the same watershed, from precipitation all the way to the ocean. This is a fun, interactive and preformative skit that will teach from a theatrical and immersive style that engages the full learner, body and mind.

STEAM Activity: Plastic Down the River

The engineering activity is a fun, interactive and educational exercise that will be focused on marine debris and will highlight the importance of recycling. Materials used will be ones that are free and every child will have access to such as single use items. The focus on this activity will be repurposing items that are commonly found in the household, on your school campus or recovered littered objects such as soft and hard plastics.
This activity will be engaging, thought provoking and allow for critical discussions around the consumption and disposal of single use items. This thoughtful project will help raise awareness in children about how toxic marine debris can be to the environment and how to live a more sustainable life through critical awareness. Young learners who participate in this activity will become aware on how to protect watersheds and become active environmental stewards both on and off school grounds.

More about Blue Schools and how we developed the curriculum and how it can benefit your students:

Blue Schools STEAM Curriculum and Ocean STEM Activities empower our youngest generations to understand the environmental and emotional connection between the watershed under their feet, their drinking water, and the ocean we all share.

Through at-home and in-class curriculum, students utilize this curriculum to acquire skills in science, technology, engineering, arts and math. This was formerly known as STEM, and is now STEAM since the National Core Arts Standards have been incorporated. Blue Schools STEAM Curriculum unites students and communities to become stewards of the beaches, streams, rivers, and watersheds and our world ocean.

The ecology-based curriculum was developed in collaboration with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s (NOAA) Meaningful Watershed Educational Experiences (MWEEs). In 2022, Blue Schools was recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as 1 of 109 Green Citizens Projects.

Blue Schools curriculum is aligned to Next Generation Science Standards and NOAA’s Meaningful Watershed Enhancement Experiences also known as, MWEEs which are science-based activities that increase participants’ environmental literacy and highlight the connection between human activity and environmental conditions.

Utilizing environmental education programs provide many benefits for all students and communities. The content can be customized to meet unique needs of individual classrooms, communities, and watersheds based on your location. The program also helps diverse and marginalized students, including those in Title 1 schools, to make a powerful impact on their environmental awareness in hopes to fuel thoughtful actions moving forward.

We are so excited about your journey with the educational activities we have created, and are here to help if you have any questions. Please contact Ocean Blue Project at education@oceanblueproject.org if you have any questions about these activities!