A Marine Curriculum Module, designed to provide background information and activities relating to the marine environment for teachers and students has been prepared by CORALINA. The module was prepared with the help of teachers and was introduced into the schools in 2004. A preliminary evaluation at the end of 2004 indicated a good general acceptance among teachers. Further evaluations are planned for 2005 and 2006. Activities for students between the ages of 5 and 15 years are included.

The modules are available in Spanish [81MB] and in English [75mb].

Activities are linked to the curriculum and range from how to conduct a community survey to making an environmental map and from making a food web to investigating how beach sand is formed. The activities are designed for different ages and are often interdisciplinary. A sample activity is shown below.

Activity 13: Beach in a bottle

Summary
During a field trip students learn how beach sand is formed.

Objectives
To understand how sand forms.
To discover the importance of corals and beaches.
To become familiar with sea animals and plants.
To foster respect for the marine environment.

Subjects Natural Sciences, Environmental Education

Ages 4 to 8

Duration 30 minutes

Curricular standards

Experimental work:
Preschool: Explore their surroundings in an entertaining way and focus their attention onparticular events, objects or situations.
Grade 1: Follow a procedure to observe and describe in detail living things andphenomena in their surroundings.
Grade 2: Obtain evidence to back up their observations, descriptions and comparisonsof living things; and the motions and characteristics of objects and phenomena in theirsurroundings.

Materials Plastic or glass jars

Instructions
Explain to students that they should not touch any live animal, and that they must returnwhatever they pick up to its place.
Ask students to fill the jars with small beach objects such as bits of sand, shells, stones,small pieces of coral, etc.
Ask them to close and shake the jars, imagining the jars to be the environment (waves,currents, tides, …). Explain that by shaking the jars, the objects inside will rub against eachother and fragment. This is how sand is formed.

Evaluation and discussion
Class discussion on all that has been observed during the field trip. An evaluation based on ashort written description or drawings.

Follow-up/Extensions
Bring sand to the class in the jars and scatter it on a light cardboard to see the differentshapes and colors of the sand grains.
Observe and draw the sea animal or plant that most attracted their attention.