The following web resources are intended to serve as classroom supplements to
seining activities. These lesson plans may be used to introduce key concepts
and/or to provide important background information to students as they prepare
for the SEINE experience. The intent is to help students recognize the
importance of monitoring fish populations and studying the physical parameters of
nearshore ecosystems
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"Fish Tagging and Essential Fish Habitat"
Rutgers University Marine Field Station
Grades 5-8; Students learn about essential estuarine habitats and use a Web Quest to
track summer flounder. The web site also features a simulation of population
estimate of mummichogs. |
"Nearshore Community Sampling"
New Jersey Marine Sciences Consortium
Grades K-12; Although some of this material is redundant to SEINE protocols,
this lesson provides good background information on nearshore habitats, trophic
levels, and contains some useful follow-up questions about the nearshore
community. |
"Counting Fishstix"
NOAA--Aquarius
Grades 9-12; Students use actual species data (http://www.reef.org) from the
Florida Keys ecosystem to survey reef fish populations |
"Cyber Salmon: Estimating Fish Populations"
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Grades 6-12; Students learn fish sampling procedure that is different from
seining using a classroom simulation. |
"Fish Biomass: Graphing & Analysis"
Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Multi-agency Education Project
Grades 7-12; Although the focus of this activity is on an ecosystem that is very
different from Long Island Sound, the lesson plan involves students in graphing
and analyzing real field research data, and encourages them to develop
conclusions.
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"More than Meets the Eye"
The Bridge: Categorizing fish by their characteristics and water depth.
grades 9-12 marine science students; Students will evaluate fish physiology and
ecology using vision research data. Although this lesson does not directly
relate to Long Island Sound, it helps students to recognize that habitat
selection is related to physiological adaptations. |
"Calculating the Speed of the Longshore Current"
New Jersey Marine Science Consortium
Grades 5-12; Students learn to experiment with a method to measure Longshore
Current and to recognize its role in sediment migration. This could be adapted
for Long Island Sound. |
"Fish Morphology"
New Jersey Marine Science Consortium
Grades 3-12; A good precursor to the seining field trip. Students study the
parts of a fish to develop the understanding that the shape, form and structure
of a fish's parts influence its lifestyle and behavior. |
"Fish Communities of the Hudson"
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
Grades 5 and 6; Students use tables of fish collection data to draw conclusions
about where fish live in the Hudson River Estuary- many of these organisms are
also found in Connecticut seine nets. Students work with real data from a
variety of sites along the Hudson River and associate the fish data with fish
behavior and habitat. |