Lesson Plan: Sharks

This lesson will focus on sharks. Our first objective will be to get our students on-line! Break the class up into groups of five. Each group will have to investigate sharks. They will have to find out the answers to the following questions:

  1. Where do sharks live?
  2. How many types of sharks are there?
  3. How do sharks breathe?
  4. How do sharks swim?
  5. What do sharks eat?
  6. How big do sharks get?

The groups will have two weeks to conduct an investigation via use of the library and the World Wide Web (WWW). Make sure that at least three of the five students in each group can log on to the computer and get on to the WWW. At least two kids from each group should know how to use the internet search tool. The idea of the group is to have kids teach each other while working together. Allow the groups research time three times a week, for a total of six hours a week.

At the end of the first week set up an open class review. Have the different groups present their findings to the whole class. At the end of that session suggest that the students check a list of URL's (web page addresses), which you will have found by surfing the WWW.

At the end of the second week the students should have enough information to complete phase one of the lesson plan.

Phase two:

For phase two of the lesson plan the teacher must set up a time to make the video call in to the Shark Tank. This live video teleconferencing connection will allow the students to see sharks first hand. Once connected they can ask the marine biologist questions as they are seeing the sharks swim by.

At the end of the session the marine biologist will ask the kids to pick one of the experiments on the WWW site and do that experiment in school and compare their results with kids from another school who are working on the same project. (A list of schools working in the program will be posted on the WWW.)

Kids pick an experiment and do it during lab time. Set aside one half day or a two hour session for the groups to conduct their experiments.

Once done with their experiments, have the kids compare results and talk about their experience with other school kids through e-mail,fax, video teleconferencing, multi media MOO or the construction of web pages.


Copyright © Ocean Of Know