Plankton: tiny drifters
Ocean life
Two free lessons for ages 8 to 11
Plankton are the base of almost every ocean food chain, from copepods to whale sharks. Students meet phytoplankton and zooplankton, then design a model plankton that sinks as slowly as possible and race it.
- Ages
- 8 to 11
- Time
- 45 to 60 minutes per lesson
- Subjects
- Science and maths
- Hands-on
- A plankton drawing task and a design-and-test sinking race
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Lesson 1: Meet the plankton
What plankton are, the difference between phytoplankton and zooplankton, larvae in the plankton, and plankton food chains.
- Ages
- 8 to 11 (grades 3 to 6)
- Time
- 45 minutes
- You need
- One worksheet per student
-
Lesson 2: The plankton race
A design challenge to build a model plankton that sinks as slowly as possible, with fair testing and improvement.
- Ages
- 8 to 11 (grades 3 to 6)
- Time
- 60 minutes
- You need
- A tall clear bottle or jar of water per team (or one for the class), modelling clay, paper, straws, pipe cleaners, foil, a stopwatch or phone timer
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Bring your students to the reef
We host school groups at our base in Zamboanguita, Negros Oriental, for diving or snorkelling, beach clean-ups and tree planting alongside our conservation team. Every visit follows our child protection policy.