Stingray Lesson Plans

Students read a story called Irwin's Death Draws Attention to Stingrays and answer vocabulary and comprehension questions about it. In this stingray lesson plan, student respond to literature by answering questions, recalling details, sharing facts, research and draw diagrams of stingrays, locate the Great Barrier Reef on a world map, and utilize technology to view video clips of stingrays.

Students are asked to agree or disagree with each of the statements below. This sets a purpose for reading; as they read, they confirm their assumptions or learn something new. Stingrays are extremely dangerous animals. Stingrays often swim away when people are nearby. A stingray moves by flapping its "wings." Stingrays are often found in very shallow ocean waters.

Young scholars examine water safety for the beach. They discuss the three safety rules, demonstrate various ways to rescue a person, participate in the stingray shuffle dance, and complete a crossword puzzle quiz.

Young scholars read Click Magazine and become familiar with the ocean and its creatures.  In this ocean activity students examine articles and gather information about various sea animals.  Young scholars write sentences about their imaginary whale watching trip. Students play Go Fish and discover new facts. young scholars draw an illustration based on the stories.

Students learn what a keystone species is, and then they draw a simple food chain to see why tiger sharks are considered a keystone species in Shark Bay. They create public education brochures describing why this would be such a significant discovery.

Young scholars complete activities from Click magazine March 2010. In this Reading Strategies lesson, students read articles, answer comprehension questions, and complete activities. They read about nutrition, monarch butterflies, eggs, sailboats, and more. 

Students analyze marine sites to include in a biodiversity protection reserve and choose sites that provide the most efficient reserve system. In this protecting marine areas lesson plan, students study the species richness and diversity index of species in 8 different sites and determine which combination of sites are the most efficient to make a successful biodiversity protection reserve.

Students explore number sense by completing algebra worksheets. For this integers lesson, students identify integers and practice placing them in order based on their numerical values. Students complete several integer worksheets and utilize counters as visual aids while working with the numbers.

Students complete a unit on the oceans of the world. They explore various websites, compare/contrast ocean mammals and fish, identify coral reefs on a map, label the oceans on a world map, define ocean conservation vocabulary, and list ways the oceans help us.

young scholars explore the important scientific concepts, as well as other important topics surrounding fish morphology, their defense strategies, general fish characteristics, and their ecosystems.