Explore the conditions under which coral reefs can grow and have students build different models of coral reefs.

Introduce the lesson by reminding the students the story of Goldilocks and Three Bears.

Ask students

• What kinds of chairs did Goldilocks find in the bear’s house?
• Why did Goldilocks think that Little bear’s chair was made just for her?

o       Why did Goldilocks think that Papa bear’s pie and Mama bear’s pie were not tasty?

o       Like a Goldilocks story, can we find favorable conditions that coral reefs can grow well—not too extreme in temperature, salinity, wave action, depth of sea?

Prompt students to explore the growing conditions that coral reefs can grow well by investigating the following websites.

·        Physical requirements for coral reefs

·        Wave and Reef development

·        The maximum depth and coral

• Coral Reef Habitat (ideal conditions) and Distribution

Prompt students to write a brief explanation of what they investigated. See  Activity Sheet 4: Goldilocks and Coral Reefs (WCR-4)

Activity: Building coral reef miniatures with Plaster of Paris.

Break students into several groups and provide the following instructions.

In your teams,

• review the reference tutorial on the web site,
• select one type of coral you want to build based on your understanding of coral reefs, and
  • create different miniature coral reefs with plaster-Paris, and finally
  • present your coral reef to the rest of the group and describe why you made it like you did.

Teacher Background:

• For information on the Plaster of Paris hands-on activity (You can find the explanation about how to make a rock sculpture with Plaster of Paris. You can use this information to build a coral reef instead of a rock sculpture.)
• The information on structure of a coral reef

Prompt each team, one at a time, to present their coral reefs miniature and their rationale as to why they chose that model and how it worked.

Discuss each teams’ presentation