SANDY BEACHES - Second Grade

Explore sandy beaches and dunes: observe and question, predict and test, classify and categorize, explore and imagine! Learn about tides and waves, and how beaches form and change. Explore how sand is made and where it comes from, and then examine different sand and learn how the materials, colors, grain sizes and grain shapes tell the story of the beach. Learn about animals that live on and in the sand, and about shells and who makes them. Study beach hoppers, hermit crabs, shorebirds, seals and sea lions. Where do people fit in? Learn about threats to our beaches and how we can care for these amazing places.

MARE lessons (Teacher's Guide to the Sandy Beach and GEMS/MARE On Sandy Shores)
     Beach Bucket Scavenger Hunt      Shell Sorting
     Making Sand                                Build a Sandy Beach
     Sand on Stage                               Chain of Life
     The Sights Sand Has Seen             Oil on the Beach
     Pinnipeds - Ears to You     

Waves

Tides, PPT

Animals that Make Shells

Hermit Crab Biology

Hermit Crab Experiments*
    *first publication occurred in Science      Activities, Classroom Projects and      Curriculum Ideas, 46(3)

Beach Hopper Biology and Jumping Experiments

Jellies and other Cnidarians, PPT

Insterstitial Meiofauna, PPT

Shorebirds, Beaks and Feet

Marine Debris

Algal Wrack, PPT

Sand Dunes

Field Inquiry: Beach Hoppers

Beach Hopper Bonanza

     Unit Summary
     Beach Hopper Diagram
     Field Journal
     Jump Worksheet