Florida oceans science lesson

I love it when I can incorporate multiple subjects into one lesson or multiple learning styles into one lesson.  Our Florida Oceans lesson was one of those lessons that just jelled well together. We got a bit of geography lessons, science lessons, and a bit of art fun.

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What you need for the Florida oceans lesson

Parrotfish and Sunken Ships: Exploring a Tropical Reef, crayons, watercolor paints, acrylic paint, paper, stapler

Florida oceans lesson

I found a wonderful book called Parrotfish and Sunken Ships: Exploring a Tropical Reef by Jim Arnosky, and it was perfect for the Florida oceans.  I’ve loved his books before and this one is even more wonderful because he talks through his day exploring with his wife.

Slowly page by page it talks through the different areas of Florida’s shoreline and oceans.  As he went through each step we drew and illustrated what we’d find there in the Florida oceans.

If we weren’t sure, we’d refer back to the book and look for more ideas.

After each step, we’d paint watercolors over it, so it could look like it was underwater  The first area is shallow, about 18 inches deep, so it’s the smallest piece of paper.

The second area is deeper and has some coral reefs.  We used a crinkled-up plastic bag and acrylic paint to simulate this one. This is where it got a bit messy, to be honest. Future Ticia here, I’m chiming in to say, this is also why we bought a card table, we knew we would get covered in paint.

As each layer was added I required more of the product they were making because they had more room.  By the time they got to the third layer of the book they were drawing at least 5 sea creatures, and one sunken object.  Not too surprisingly they all opted to put in sunken ships.  Of course one of the boys decided there were ghost pirates in the water too……

The fourth layer has the more amazing coral structure from Florida oceans, so on this one I required a couple of different coral types and colors.  I’m working with the kids on including colors in their drawings.  This isn’t a problem so much for Princess who takes her time on any art project, but the boys……  There are some projects they just hurry-scurry through and then have a rather pitiful result.

I have no painted version pictured because we had to wait for the tempera paint we used for the coral to dry, and then the boys got impatient after it was painted, and stapled their projects together before I was ready for it……….

Yeah, we had some talks about patience after that one………….

Let’s learn some more about Florida’s oceans and the layers

We’d talked about the ocean’s layers before when we studied Swimming Creatures using  Apologia Swimming Creatures. This is a much deeper and in-depth version of the ocean, and a bit different from what we learned about the Florida ocean layers.

Let’s see what others did this week:

Each week I’m spotlighting a few posts that were shared previously.  Many posts get linked up later in the week and they don’t always get as many clicks as they deserve, so I’m trying to spotlight a few every week.

Humph, all but one of the posts I linked to are now gone, much sadness…

And finally, I had to share this great list of science experiments for boys from Raising Lifelong Learners.   Prepare to be grossed out.

More Learning Fun not about Florida’s Oceans

• STEM Challenge: cross the Oobleck Ocean
• How do currents work?
• Using Art and Role Play to Teach Science
• How does ocean water temperature affect movement?
• Smithsonian Science Kit