3rd Grade Teachers

Students learn the importance of the rocky seashore ecosystem, explore how animals and humans utilize this ecosystem and learn how they can help protect the rocky seashore today and in the future.

During the Community Building Day, students are introduced to the rocky seashore and the organisms that live there through a search and find activity and create a Discovery Bracelet to build their belief that they are a unique individual who belongs to a community of scientists.

During the Exploration Day at La Jolla Cove, students explore a real rocky seashore and use scientific tools to analyze how animals and humans utilize this habitat while building their belief that they can recognize and do science.

During the Make a Difference Day at the Living Lab, students learn how they can help protect the rocky seashore today and in the future.  Students learn how their community is connected to the rocky seashore through the watershed and work to protect this habitat by picking up trash that will eventually end up at the rocky seashore and harm the animals that live there.  Students learn about a future career opportunity by becoming ecologists and exploring the many ways animals are adapted to live at the rocky seashore. Students also meet a scientist who shares their career pathway and the challenges and obstacles they have faced along the way to becoming a science leader. Collectively, these experiences build students’ belief that science is important and relevant, that a career in science is a possibility, challenges can be opportunities to learn and grow, and that they can make a difference in the world.

Students love becoming ecologists, exploring the rocky seashore, using scientific tools, getting to know science leaders, and making a difference in the world!

NGSS Alignment: 

Performance Expectations: 3-LS3-2: Use evidence to support the explanation that traits can be influenced by the environment; 3-LS4-3: Construct an argument with evidence that in a particular habitat, some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.

DCI LS3.A: Inheritance of Traits ; LS3.B: Variations of Traits ; LS2.C: Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience ; LS4.C: Adaptation

Cross-Cutting Concepts: Cause and Effect – cause and effect relationships are routinely identified and used to explain change.  Systems and systems models – students understand that a system is a group of related parts that make up a whole and can carry out functions its individual parts cannot. They can also describe a system in terms of its components and their interactions.

Classroom Media: 

Community Building Slides

Rocky Seashore Video

Rocky Seashore Animal ID Cards

• Adams Elementary
• Central Elementary
• Cherokee Point Elementary
• Edison Elementary
• Euclid Elementary
• Franklin Elementary
• Hamilton Elementary
• Joyner Elementary
• Normal Heights Elementary
• Rosa Parks Elementary
• Rowan Elementary

• Tide Pool Information
  • What is a tide pool? (NOAA National Ocean Service)
  • What is the intertidal zone? (NOAA National Ocean Service)
  • The Rocky Shore (Monterey Bay Aquarium)
• Lesson Plans and Activities
  • Post Program Reflection Sheets – Example 1 ;  Example 2
  • Marine Debris Activities (NOAA Marine Debris Program)
  • Traveling Trunks (Cabrillo National Monument)
    • “See Life – Understanding Biodiversity in Marine Ecosystems”
• Free Field Trip Opportunity with Forever Balboa Park
  • Two 45-minute lesson plan options focused on connecting literacy with environmental literacy in an outside space at Balboa Park.
  • Interested? Book here!
• Science Careers
  • Skype a Scientist