Student reflection activity:

• Prompt students to think about how the characteristics of coral reefs can be investigated using aircraft and remote sensing instruments.
• Prompt students to record the questions they have, the information they know, the information they think they know about coral reefs, and the ideas for further investigating the problem in their reflective journal.

Assessment:

• Students have identified the key characteristics of coral reefs, including:
  • coral reef symbiosis
  • Definition of a fringing reef, barrier reef and an atoll.
  • major factors limiting the occurrence of coral reefs in globally.
  • major factors limiting the occurrence of coral reefs locally.

Ideas for math lesson connections

• Students read a chart that shows the laltitude and longitude of the islands of Hawai'i.

Related National Education Math Standards

•   Measurement

Ideas for geography lesson connections

• Students identify the geographic location of the Hawai'ian Islands. For example, the students might create a report describing the location and geography of the island.
• Students analyze the physical habitat of coral reefs. For example, students might need to investigate the spatial organization and development of coral reefs.

Related National Education Geography Standards

• The World in Spatial Terms (3)
• Places and Regions (5)
• Physical Systems (8)

Ideas for technology lesson connections

• Students create their own electronic journal for keeping notes on KaAMS project.
• Students create a database of vocabulary words and terms they will learn throughout KaAMS.
• Students learn to use presentation software while preparing a presentation on their investigation results.
• Students begin to develop a web site to report their progress and what they learn during the KaAMS project.

Related National Education Science Technology Standards

1. Technology and Society (#4)
2. The design World (#17)

Activity Sheet 1: What Does a Coral Reef Look Like (WCR-1)?

Name:

1. Draw a picture of a coral reef and label its features.

<Reference> http://library.thinkquest.org/J002237/corals/partscoralpolyp.gif

Teacher Note: In reality, each polyp in the picture is extremely small, about 1mm across.

2. What does your picture show about real coral reefs?

A coral reef is made up of the shells of single, small marine animals called coral polyps. When coral polyps grow into a group they are called a coral colony. As polyps die, new ones grow on top of the old empty shells. Over time, the collection of shells left behind by dead coral polyps and dead coral colonies build large groups of rock-like structure called a coral reef. Although the entire coral reef looks like a lot of large rocks, the top surfaces are actually covered with new coral colonies that are very much alive.

Activity Sheet 2: Coral Reef Symbiosis (WCR-2)

Name:

1. Did you have a time when you helped someone and it ended up benefiting both of you?  Please write about this situation in 1-2 paragraphs.

Examples:  

• Boosting another person up to reach something of importance to both –like a cookie they would share.
• Running a relay race
• A grandparent living in the same house as their children.  They are provided with room and board for free, while they baby-sit for the parents, or do the laundry.

2. What you described in item 1 is symbiosis.  Combine what you learned from this experience and what you found out about its definition to define symbiosis in your own words.

Symbiosis means sustaining the life of each other by living together in harmony.  What students should have described in answer one was an action whose purpose was to benefit the other.

3.      Define zooxanthellae.

Zooxanthellae are one-celled yellow-brown (dinoflagellate) algae that live symbiotically in the reef-building corals.

4. Why do we say that coral reefs live symbiotically?

Inside the sac of each coral polyp lives a one-celled algae called zooxanthellae (zoo-zan-thel-y). The algae gives off oxygen and other nutrients that the coral polyps need to live and in return the polyp gives the algae carbon dioxide and other substances the algae needs.  In addition to the symbiotic relationship between zooxanthellae and the coral polyps, many other fish live symbiotically with the coral reefs.

5.      Why do coral reefs grow so near the surface of the water?

Because the algae (zooxanthellae) need sunlight to create food through photosynthesis, they live in ocean waters less than 100 meters deep.

6.      Why do you think that symbiosis is important to coral reefs?

Without the algae, the coral could not live. Without the coral, giving off carbon dioxide and other substances, the algae could not live.

Activity Sheet 3: Researching the Types of Coral Reefs (WCR-3)

Name:

1. What is the difference between fringing, barrier, and atoll coral reefs?

The main difference between each type of reef is the distance it lies from the beach shoreline.

2. Define fringing coral reefs.

Fringing reefs attach themselves to the beach where they can find much food and clean, rather than muddy, freshwater.  These are the simplest and most common kind of reef.

3. Define barrier coral reefs.

Barrier reefs grow out from the beach as far as 100 km from shore, often rimming and protecting a relatively deep lagoon on the ocean side.  Some are 2000 km in length.   The lagoon is a common place for boats to dock, and therefore can threaten the coral.

4. Define atolls.

Atolls are circular, surrounding a lagoon. Its upper surface is nearly flat with steep outer slopes.  They are found far from land, and are mainly in the west Pacific.  Charles Darwin, solving the puzzle of how they are formed, determined that they formed around islands that are sinking. As the island sinks, the reefs continue to grow upward at the same pace, and therefore remain visible.

Activity Sheet 4:  Goldilocks and Coral Reefs (WCR-4)

Name:

1. Where do coral reefs grow?

Coral reefs can be seen throughout the tropical and subtropical Western Atlantic and Indo-Pacific oceans, generally within 30 degrees N and 30 degrees S latitudes.

2. Why do you think that coral reefs only occur between certain latitudes, and then only within certain areas?

Studies have shown that most reefs grow well between the temperatures of 23-25 degrees C. The temperature is ideal year round in these locations, not too hot, and not too cold.

3. What major factors limit where coral reefs can found? List 5 major factors limiting the occurrence of coral reefs and find the

Activity Sheet 5:  Analyzing their Living Conditions (WCR-5)

Name:

1. Search for locations where coral reefs can be found.

·        Where are the islands of Hawai'i?

2. Do you think that the islands of Hawai'i are ideal environment for a coral reef?  Why?

They have a stable temperature. Salinity is perfect, and there is enough wave action.

3.      Do you think that coral reefs could live in your area?  Why or why not?

This answer depends on the location of your school.  Test the salinity, temperature, wave action and sediment in water near you to determine this.

rev September 22, 2002