TRY

Teacher Activities
  
Student Activities

Try using the new knowledge about coral reefs to find an ideal environment for them.

Provide students with the various images of Hawaiian coral reefs.

 

Ask students

  • What type of coral reefs did you observe?
  • What are the characteristics of Hawaiian coral reefs?

Ask students to find where the islands of Hawai'i are located and whether there are coral reefs around the islands of Hawai'i in the map of remote sensing of coral reefs . Have students use the zoom feature and the Reefsbase option to idetify where the reefs are located around the islands of Hawai'i. After zooming in on Hawai'i, ask students to look at addtional remote sensing images of Hawai'i at the bottom of the screen.

Prompt students to evaluate whether the islands of Hawai'i are ideal for coral reefs by having them explore the ocean temperature of Hawaiian islands from the National Data Buoy Center.

 

Prompt students to write a brief explanation of what they investigated. See Activity Sheet 5: Analyzing Their Living Conditions.

Activity Instruction:

  • Ask students to identify where Hawaiian islands are located at the larger map from the National Data Buoy Center (http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/Maps/rmd.shtml)
  • Ask students to find the buoy closest to the reefs on Oahu
  • Ask students to identify temperature at buoy closet to the reefs on Ohau It is highly recommended that you print student activity sheets in advance

 

Teacher Notes:

  1. Studies have shown that most reefs tend to grow well between temperatures of 23-25° C. (Stable temperature between 18-30°C is necessary for the survival of coral reefs.)
  2. You may want to see whether coral reefs grow in a your area instead of Hawai'i. For this activity, you can click on your respective locations on the map of remote sensing of coral reefs  and also test water temperature in your locale from the National Data Buoy Center or from local samples to simulate whether you live in an ideal environment for a coral reef to thrive.

 

  

Student activity:

 

 

  • Students look at the various images of coral reefs in the island of Hawai'i.
  • Lobe, cauliflower, and finger coral

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Student Activity

(http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/Maps/Hawaii.shtml )