The Puget Sound Estuarium has five different estuary themed kits available for checkout. All kits include enough materials for a group of 30 students and the content is designed for age appropriate learning. The School Estuary Kits support current educational standards (Next Generation Science Standards, STEM Literacy and Estuary Principles & Concepts).
Discovering Estuaries
This kit is a great introduction to the topic of estuaries. With the help of a map activity, students will learn how to identify estuaries, relate to the Puget Sound ecosystem and learn how important estuaries are on a local and global scale.
Total number of kits available: 4
- Students will learn what an estuary is.
- Students will be able to explain what kind of estuary the Puget Sound is.
- Students will identify estuaries by observing geography.
- Students will explain the specific conditions within an estuarine habitat which foster marine life.
- Students will identify themselves as a part of the Puget Sound.
MS – ESS2-2. Construct an explanation based on evidence for how geoscience processes have changed surface at varying time and spatial scales.
- Science and Engineering Practices – Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions
- Disciplinary Core Ideas – ESS2.C: The Roles of Water in Earth’s Surface Processes
- Crosscutting Concepts – Patterns
Understanding Estuaries
This kit provides the opportunity for students to become familiar with some abiotic factors affecting our Puget Sound. Activities include reading and graphing data from tide tables, a density experiment and creating their own salinity readers (hydrometers).
Totals Kits Available: 4
- Students will investigate different salinities of solutions while using a hydrometer.
- Students will read, graph, analyze and interpret data from a tide table.
- Students will construct and use a water density flow model.
- Students will understand why the Puget Sound is so productive.
MS – PS2 Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions
- Science and Engineering Practices – Analyzing and Interpreting Data.
- Disciplinary Core Ideas – PS2. B. Types of Interactions
- Crosscutting Concepts – Cause and Effect, Patterns & Scale, Proportion, and Quantity
Exploring Estuary Life/Beach Field Investigation
This 2 in 1 kit covers Puget Sound marine organisms, how they are classified and how to collect data on the biodiversity of the Puget Sound Intertidal Zone which includes both a classroom and field component.
Total number of kits available: 4 Estuary Life & 4 Beach Field Investigation
- Student will define biodiversity as it relates to estuary ecosystems.
- Students will understand the basic concepts of adaptation.
- Students will explain how scientists classify animals into different phyla.
- Students will distinguish characteristics between common phyla found in estuarine ecosystems.
- Students will understand the process of collecting scientific data.
- Students will follow protocols and procedures to collect unbiased data.
- Students will be introduced to data sampling techniques.
- Using data collected, students will be able to answer questions about diversity in an ecosystem.
- Students will identify species within a habitat.
MS – LS2 Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
- Science and Engineering Practices – Analyzing and Interpreting Data
- Disciplinary Core Ideas – LS2. A. Interdepend Relationships in Ecosystems & LS2. C. Ecosystems Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience.
- Crosscutting Concepts – Cause and Effect & Stability and Change
Investigating Human Impacts
This kit allows students to become familiar with how their actions can affect the health of our estuary and how they can be part of the solution. Topic of discussion include burning of fossil fuels, ocean acidification, toxins and climate change.
Total number of kits available: 4
- Students will begin to understand what fossil fuels and how they contribute to a changing climate.
- Students will begin to understand what pH is and how the pH of the ocean is affected by CO2 that is absorbed into the ocean from the atmosphere.
- Students will begin to understand that ocean acidification is a change in the ocean’s chemistry and human activities contribute to this problem.
- Students will examine how toxins move up the food web and explore ways to minimize their contributions of toxins to the environment.
- Students will learn that the climate change occurring now is caused by CO2 added to the atmosphere by human industry.
MS – LS2 Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
- Science and Engineering Practices – Analyzing and Interpreting Data
- Disciplinary Core Ideas – LS2. A. Interdepend Relationships in Ecosystems
- Crosscutting Concepts – Cause and Effect & Patterns
MS – ESS3 Earth and Human Activity
- Science and Engineering Practices – Analyzing and Interpreting Data
- Disciplinary Core Ideas – ESS3.A: Natural Resources & ESS3.D: Global Climate Change
- Crosscutting Concepts – Cause and Effect, Patterns & Stability and Change
Testing Estuaries
This kit includes vocabulary, content, and activities to help students learn about the water quality of our estuary. Students will learn about and test different water quality parameters such as coliform bacteria, salinity, dissolved oxygen, nitrate, pH, phosphate, temperature and turbidity, analyze their data and draw conclusions on how healthy our Puget Sound ecosystem is.
Total number of kits available: 4
- Students will learn what an estuary is.
- Students will identify and test various water quality parameters of the Puget Sound.
- Students will summarize trends in water quality data.
- Students will understand how to report and improve the water quality of Puget Sound.
MS-LS2-4 Construct an argument supported by empirical evidence that changes to physical or biological components of an ecosystem affect populations
- Science and Engineering Practices – Analyzing and Interpreting Data
- Disciplinary Core Ideas – MS-LS2.C: Ecosystems are dynamic in nature; their characteristics can vary over time. Disruptions to any physical or biological component of an ecosystem can lead to shifts in all its populations. (MS-LS-4)
- Crosscutting Concepts – Patterns, Stability & Change