Ocean Pals learning resources
Sharks in Balance: classroom lessons
Investigate sharks and turn discovery into artwork. This learning unit includes lessons for Grades K–2, 3–5, 6–8 and 9–12. Choose the lesson that suits your students. Each lesson includes a printable student handout with reading material and space to draw or write.
For educators: Educator guidance and sample responses (PDF, 6 pages). Includes expected reasoning, sample responses, worked calculations and questions for further discussion. Each lesson links to the educator guidance for those grades.
Using these lessons
Choosing a lesson level compares the four grade divisions and suggests ways to adapt the support for your group.
The theme is Sharks in Balance: Healthy Sharks, Healthy Oceans. Here, “balance” means relationships in a changing ecosystem. It does not mean every population stays constant or that every shark species has the same role.
Background reading: Why Sharks Matter introduces shark diversity, ocean relationships and conservation. Educators can use it before a lesson or return to it when students want more context.
Each lesson ends with a sketch or small artwork and an explanation of the idea behind it. Allow a separate art session if students want to develop their sketches into finished artwork. Students may explain their ideas aloud while an adult writes down their words.
Use the reading cards below aloud or on paper. Student internet access, a video and a school subscription are unnecessary. Teachers may open the linked resource pages to show photographs, with descriptive narration. Follow each provider’s reuse terms before copying photographs.
Choose support by what your students can do, as well as by grade. Read unfamiliar words aloud, model the first step and let students rehearse an explanation with a partner before writing. The suggested times allow a first sketch; rereading, language support or a fuller discussion may require another session.
Invite questions without asking children to perform fear or to suppress it. Sharks are wild animals; these are classroom activities. Let students choose realistic or imaginative artwork and explain any visual metaphor. Teeth, dark colors and cartoons are not signs of a poor scientific idea.
Assess an explained connection, a supported claim and thoughtful revision. Artistic polish, expensive materials and agreement with a prescribed slogan are not classroom learning measures. Curriculum connections include observing, modeling, interpreting evidence and explaining ideas visually.
Grades K–2
Meet two different sharks
Student handout: Grades K–2 (PDF, 2 pages) · read together, talk and draw
Educator guidance: Grades K–2 (PDF, page 2)
Question: What can we learn by looking closely at different sharks?
Learning goal: Each child shows one thing learned about a shark and explains a detail in a drawing through speaking, pointing or dictation.
Adult support: Read every card and prompt aloud. Independent reading and writing are optional. For kindergarten, ask one question at a time and record children’s words. Children ready to write may add a label or short sentence.
Prepare: Plain paper, crayons or pencils, and the two reading cards below. Preview the linked animal photographs if you plan to display them. For kindergarten, draw two large outlines on the board while describing their shapes; no printed photo is needed.
Teach first: an animal in its home
Read aloud: “A shark is a fish. It uses gills to take oxygen from the water. It needs food, too. The ocean is its habitat: the place where it lives and finds what it needs. There are many kinds of sharks. They do not all look the same or eat the same things.” Science background: Smithsonian Ocean
“When we look at a picture, we can notice a shape or a pattern. We cannot always see what the animal eats. We can ask questions and read about it. Then we can use what we learn to draw more than just the animal—we can show part of its life.”
Model the difference: Say, “I see spots in this picture. I learned from the reading that this shark eats tiny animals. I wonder how it finds them.” Children can use “I see,” “I learned” and “I wonder” without memorizing the word “observation.”
Read aloud: two shark lives
Whale shark. A whale shark is a very big fish. It has light spots. It eats tiny animals that drift in the water. A big animal can eat very small things. Georgia Aquarium
Leopard shark. A leopard shark has dark marks. It finds food near the ocean bottom. It eats crabs and worms. Monterey Bay Aquarium
Teach the lesson
Notice and wonder · 5 minutes
Ask, “What do you notice about this animal? What would you like to find out?” Accept spoken answers, pointing and gestures. Put observations and questions in separate spaces on the board. A guess about what an animal wants belongs with the questions.
Compare the two sharks · 8 minutes
Use the “Teach first” reading, then read one animal card at a time. Pause to ask about its food. Ask how the two sharks are alike; take responses before asking how they differ. Reread as needed. For children ready for another question, ask whether a big animal must eat big food.
Make a connection · 7 minutes
On the board, write or sketch each shark’s name and the food named in its card. Children take turns matching a shark to one food. Ask them to finish “I matched these because…” Correct a mistaken connection by rereading the relevant card together.
Draw a discovery · 10 minutes
Say, “Choose one shark. Draw it in its ocean home and include something you learned.” A child might emphasize a pattern, feeding behavior or the nearby seafloor. Ask one question about each drawing rather than supplying a composition to copy.
Share and check · 5 minutes
Each child points to one detail and explains it to a partner. Listen for a connection supported by the reading. If a child says every shark eats the same food, revisit the comparison.
Use the student handout
On page 1, discuss how the sharks are alike and different. Invite “Something I learned” and “Something I wonder” responses; an adult can write them. On page 2, children draw, then point and explain. Read “My shark is” and “In my picture, I showed” aloud as prompts. The lines are available for an adult’s notes or a child’s optional writing.
Teacher check: A child can name or point to a supported feature and explain it. Dictation, a labeled sketch or an oral explanation all count. For older students in Grades K–2, add a sentence comparing the two species.
Adapt: Split the lesson after the matching activity for a younger class. Offer large drawing tools, verbal descriptions and an adult scribe. Students may explain in a home language before developing an English caption.
Grades 3–5
Build a web of connections
Student handout: Grades 3–5 (PDF, 2 pages) · build a food web and investigate a change
Educator guidance: Grades 3–5 (PDF, page 3)
Question: How can a shark be connected to several other animals?
Learning goal: Students draw feeding arrows consistently, explain two connections, and identify something their model cannot tell them.
Prepare: Six paper labels per group: clam, crab, worm, fish, leopard shark, broadnose sevengill shark. Provide paper and pencils. Read the evidence card together; assign a reader, a connector and a questioner, or work as a single small group.
Student reading: food links are relationships
An animal gets energy by eating. It uses that energy to move, grow and carry out the processes that keep it alive. A feeding arrow follows food energy from the organism being eaten to the animal that eats it. A food chain follows one route. A food web shows several connected routes.
A predator eats another animal; that other animal is its prey. These words describe a relationship. An animal can be a predator in one relationship and prey in another.
A diagram is a model. It helps us think, but it leaves things out. A feeding arrow says that an animal can eat that food. It does not tell us how much it eats, how often it feeds or how many animals live there. Changes in food, shelter and conditions can have several effects. We need observations to find out which effects occur.
Worked example: If one food becomes scarce, an animal with another food source may change what it eats. That could affect another animal using the same food. Our diagram helps us ask the question; information about diet and food availability helps us answer it.
Evidence card: a small part of a coastal food web
Leopard sharks eat clams, worms, crabs and fishes. Broadnose sevengill sharks eat crabs, fishes and other sharks; leopard sharks can be their prey. These are selected feeding links. The cards omit many organisms and other sources of food.
Sources: Monterey Bay Aquarium’s leopard shark and broadnose sevengill shark accounts.
Teach the lesson
Read one arrow · 5 minutes
Introduce the reading above, pausing at predator, prey and model. Write crab → leopard shark. Ask a student to read the arrow aloud: “Food energy moves from the crab to the shark.” Establish the same convention for every group.
Build the network · 12 minutes
Build the first link together. Groups then arrange their labels and add one link at a time, rereading the evidence before drawing each arrow. Keep a question mark beside a connection to check. Once the web is drawn, ask which animal is both predator and prey. Let students point to the two relationships before explaining them.
Try a change · 10 minutes
Give the group a hypothetical situation: fewer crabs are available. Students circle the links directly affected, then discuss possible responses. Prompt them to consider other food, movement and competition. Record one prediction and one piece of information needed to investigate it. The exercise predicts possibilities; it does not count animals or demonstrate a population crash.
Turn a connection into a picture · 12 minutes
Students choose two or more connected organisms and sketch a way to make that relationship visible. Arrows, overlapping shapes or a shared setting are possible tools. Ask the artist to explain which part is scientific information and which part is a visual choice.
Check the explanation · 6 minutes
A partner traces two arrows and asks one question. Each artist revises an arrow or caption if needed, then completes the response below.
Use the student handout
Page 1 holds the food-web model and the predator-and-prey explanation. On page 2, record a possible result of fewer crabs, the information needed to investigate it and a limit of the model. Use the drawing space for the artwork study, then check it with a partner.
Teacher check: The model has seven selected links: four foods to the leopard shark; crab, fish and leopard shark to the sevengill. A sound response gives one plausible outcome and recognizes that other outcomes are possible. Students may need information about other foods or how animals move. The model omits producers, decomposers and many consumers, so it represents only part of a food web.
Discussion guidance: “More prey will always survive if there are fewer predators” goes beyond the model. Other predators, food shortages or changing habitat may also affect survival. Ask students to replace “will always” with a prediction that names what would need investigating.
Adapt: For students new to food webs, read aloud and build crab → leopard shark → sevengill together before adding the other links. Provide prewritten labels and accept a spoken explanation. Start with a known feeding link: “The reading tells us that leopard sharks eat crabs and worms. If there are fewer crabs, what other food might a leopard shark eat?” Then ask, “What would we need to check to find out whether that food is available?” For example: “A leopard shark might eat more worms. We would need to check whether there are enough worms where it feeds.” Students ready for more can compare two plausible outcomes or research a missing animal, naming a source for its link.
Grades 6–8
What can a shark change?
Student handout: Grades 6–8 (PDF, 2 pages) · read evidence cards and explain a pathway
Educator guidance: Grades 6–8 (PDF, page 4)
Question: Can a predator affect a habitat through the way other animals behave?
Learning goal: Students distinguish observation from explanation, describe an indirect effect, and include an appropriate limit in a scientific claim.
Prepare: Paper, two colors of pencil and the three short evidence cards below. Locate Shark Bay, Western Australia, on a classroom map if one is available. Explain “grazer” as an animal that feeds on plants or algae and “exclosure” as an enclosure designed to keep selected animals out.
Student reading: effects can travel through behavior
A predator can affect prey by eating them. Its presence can also affect what living prey do. An animal choosing a feeding place may face a tradeoff: one place offers more food, while another offers a better chance of avoiding a predator. Changing where it feeds can affect other organisms there.
An effect is indirect when it acts through another relationship. The question is no longer just “How many prey did the predator eat?” It can also be “Did the prey change their behavior, and what followed?” The Shark Bay example below investigates that kind of connection.
Researchers need comparisons. If plants grow differently inside a cage, keeping grazers out is one possible explanation. The cage might also change water flow or light. A control designed to reveal those effects makes the comparison more informative. No single comparison answers every question about a habitat.
Words for reading evidence: An observation is what researchers recorded. A method is how they investigated a question. An interpretation is what they think the evidence means. A prediction describes what they expect in a new situation. Model the first three using cards A, B and C before asking students to use the terms independently.
Evidence cards: research in Shark Bay
A · Behavior. Researchers observed changes in where animals such as dugongs and green turtles fed when tiger sharks were present.
B · Investigation. They compared seagrass protected from dugongs and turtles with plots those animals could reach. A later experiment used smaller fish-proof cages and partly open cages to check effects of the cages themselves.
C · Interpretation. Their findings support an indirect pathway: shark presence can alter grazing behavior, which can affect seagrass. The place, species and environmental conditions matter.
Paraphrased from the researchers’ Shark Bay Ecosystem Research Project account. These are qualitative summaries, not a numerical dataset or a report of sharks being experimentally removed.
Teach the lesson
Question the claim · 5 minutes
Display a claim written for this exercise: “If sharks leave, the whole habitat will collapse.” Ask students what evidence would be needed to support every part of that sentence. Leave the question open while they work.
Read the evidence · 10 minutes
Read the explanation of indirect effects and controls together. Identify the observation in card A as a class. Pairs then mark a method and an interpretation in B and C. Take the questions one at a time: “What was kept out? What was compared? Why check the effect of the cage?” Sketch an enclosed and an accessible plot if the comparison is unfamiliar.
Draw two kinds of connection · 12 minutes
Students sketch the reported pathway from shark presence to grazing behavior to seagrass. Label each arrow with a verb. Below it, draw a separate connection: seagrass → green turtle. Label this arrow “is eaten by.” Explain how this feeding arrow differs from the arrows in the pathway. Use words as well as color so the distinction remains visible in a monochrome copy.
Test the explanation’s limits · 8 minutes
Return to the opening claim. Ask which words exceed the evidence. Could weather, light or other grazers affect the result? What would another habitat require us to investigate? Students can explain the pathway in everyday language.
Compose and revise · 10 minutes
On a separate sheet of paper, students sketch an evidence-based artwork idea and a short caption. The handout’s drawing space is for the pathway diagram. Invite students to show movement or choice. A partner asks, “What supports this? Where does the claim apply?” Revise one phrase or visual connection.
Exit response · 5 minutes
Use the student handout
Page 1 asks students to distinguish observation, investigation and interpretation, and explain the cage control. On page 2, complete the pathway diagram, question the opening claim, write a more precise claim, and identify supporting evidence and uncertainty. Finish by describing the artwork idea and the change made after partner feedback.
Teacher check: A defensible response locates the claim in Shark Bay, explains a possible effect through behavior, and avoids treating it as a universal prediction. These cards teach students to explain the researchers’ reported interpretation and distinguish observation from method. Card B does not supply the seagrass results, so students cannot independently evaluate that experimental result from these cards. Strong students may notice that cage experiments investigate grazing, while separate observations connect behavior with shark presence.
Example of a useful revision: Replace “Every reef collapses without sharks” with “In Shark Bay, tiger sharks can influence seagrass through changes in grazing.” The revised statement identifies the place and mechanism. It gives the artist something specific to show without predicting an inevitable outcome for every ocean habitat.
Adapt: Provide three labeled boxes: shark presence, grazer behavior and seagrass. Students connect them and supply the arrow labels. Start with “When tiger sharks are present, grazers may change ___.” Then ask, “How could that change affect seagrass? Which evidence card supports your explanation?” For an extension, introduce “trophic cascade,” an indirect effect through feeding relationships, and design a comparison in another habitat. Specify what to observe and what else could affect the result.
Grades 9–12
Make a claim the evidence can support
Student handout: Grades 9–12 (PDF, 3 pages) · compare estimates, test a claim and sketch two compositions
Educator guidance: Grades 9–12 (PDF, pages 5–6)
Question: How can a conservation poster be persuasive and precise?
Learning goal: Students compare like-for-like estimates, separate a finding from a policy inference, and revise a visual argument without overstating the evidence.
Prepare: Paper, calculators and the data note below. Teachers may share the linked university summary. The supplied note supports an offline lesson; use the full research paper as an extension for students ready to examine methods.
Check starting knowledge: Ask students to interpret a table row and calculate a percentage change. If needed, model an unrelated example: a change from 10 to 12 is an increase of 2, and 2 ÷ 10 × 100 = 20%. Allow calculators. Define a claim as the point being made, a source as where its evidence comes from, and a limitation as something the evidence cannot establish.
Student reading: a number needs a definition
Before using a number, ask what was counted, where, when and how. Fishing mortality is a count or estimate of deaths associated with fishing. It is different from population size, which describes how many animals are alive. Neither number, on its own, tells us the future of every species.
A global estimate draws together records with different gaps and levels of detail. An adjustment for poorly identified animals can change an estimate without describing a new event. Comparing two years requires compatible definitions. Comparing differently adjusted estimates can turn a change in method into an apparent change in the world.
Precision matters in images, too. A graph with a shortened vertical scale may make a small relative change look large. A collage of identical animals can imply that every species faces the same pressure. The job of a caption is to help the audience understand what the evidence actually covers.
Conservation question: what does a rule address?
Finning means removing a shark’s fins and discarding the rest of the animal at sea. A restriction on finning addresses that practice. Reducing the total number of sharks killed is a broader objective. A proposed measure needs an intended outcome and a way to check it. Ask who must act, what records would be needed and how to account for effects on fishing communities. The research example allows students to investigate these questions without assuming that any single measure solves the whole problem.
Data note: what is being counted?
A study published in 2024 examined shark fishing mortality during 2012–2019. Its university summary reports the following rounded estimates. “Mortality” here means deaths associated with fishing, not the number of sharks alive or the number of fins traded.
| Measure | 2012 | 2019 |
|---|---|---|
| Reported comparison of annual shark fishing mortality | 76 million | 80 million |
| Broader estimate also accounting for sharks not properly identified by species | Not supplied in this lesson | 101 million |
The researchers found that measures against finning did not reduce total mortality overall during the study period. Their analysis also identified variation among fisheries and measures associated with lower mortality.
Source: Dalhousie University’s January 2024 research summary, which links to the paper in Science. Estimates are rounded, depend on coverage and methods, and describe an earlier study period.
First period: interrogate the evidence
Choose between headlines · 5 minutes
Offer two invented headlines: “Shark deaths rose from 76 million to 101 million” and “Study estimates fishing killed 80 million sharks in 2019.” Ask what each headline leaves out. Do not ask students to choose the most dramatic wording.
Read and compare · 12 minutes
Read “A number needs a definition” and the data note. Pairs identify the study period, the unit and the distinction between the two estimates. Calculate the change from 76 to 80 million, then the percentage change using 76 as the starting value. Discuss why combining the first row’s starting figure with the second row’s ending figure is misleading.
Examine a proposed response · 18 minutes
Ask students to assess “A ban on finning solves shark overfishing” using the data note. Then model a hypothetical proposal: stop fishing in one area for part of the year, with the aim of reducing shark deaths. This is an example to investigate, not an endorsed or proven solution. Ask who uses the area, whether fishing would move elsewhere and what records could show a change in shark deaths. A useful first response is, “We would need to compare deaths before and during the closure, including nearby areas where fishing might move.”
Groups use that proposal or choose another possible action. Discuss who could be affected, a practical difficulty and what to measure. Students propose questions to investigate; the short reading cannot settle a policy’s effectiveness. Groups ready for more can consult the university summary and compare two approaches.
Write a working claim · 10 minutes
At the top of handout page 3, each student writes a claim, identifies its source and gives one limitation. Complete this response at the end of the first period and return to it in the second. The claim may address careful use of data or reducing fishing mortality. If students choose an ecological claim instead, first provide the relevant reading and evidence from that lesson. A policy recommendation should say what change is proposed and how its effect could be checked.
Second period: build a visual argument
Retrieve and refine · 5 minutes
Students reread their claim and remove language they cannot support. Ask what the audience needs to understand first.
Try two compositions · 15 minutes
Make two small sketches of the same idea. Students may use illustration, a carefully labeled graph, typography or metaphor. If graphing the estimates, label years, units and the scale. If using a metaphor, explain where the metaphor stops describing the science.
Peer review · 10 minutes
A partner identifies the central claim without hearing the artist’s explanation, checks it against the data note and names a possible misreading. Ask, “Does the image imply a stronger conclusion than the words?” Each artist decides which criticism to address.
Revise · 10 minutes
Revise one composition and write a short source note for the classroom record. Ask students to explain how their sources informed the image and wording they chose.
Exit response · 5 minutes
Use the student handout
In the first period, use page 1 for the data and headlines, page 2 for calculations and the proposed response, and the first response on page 3 for a working claim, source and limitation. In the second period, return to page 3, make two compositions, record a possible misreading and revise one composition. Then complete “I changed this part of my artwork because.”
Teacher check: The reported change is approximately 4 million, or 5.3% using the rounded figures. The 101 million figure includes an additional adjustment; it cannot be used as the endpoint of that same comparison. The source does not establish that every regulation fails or that the increase was caused by the regulations.
Worked calculation: Absolute change: 80 − 76 = 4 million. Relative change: 4 ÷ 76 × 100 ≈ 5.3%. A responsible caption names the 2012–2019 study period and calls the values estimates. It should not describe them as a current annual census.
Adapt: Supply a percentage-change worked example using unrelated numbers. Accept an oral source explanation. For advanced students, compare the summary with the full paper’s definitions and uncertainty estimates before revising the caption.