Environmental Education

UF/IFAS Extension Florida Sea Grant offers a variety of education resources for teachers, families and adults. Curricula are correlated to Florida and national education standards.

Educational videos (suitable for at-home learning)

Several lessons from the curricula below have been recorded and are available on this page, along with other educational videos.

Bite-sized Science webinar series

These live webinars are geared towards a general adult audience, although content is appropriate for upper middle and high school students. Webinars are short--30 minutes--with questions following the presentations.     

Virtual field trips

These video field trips are led by UF/IFAS Extension Florida Sea Grant agents and are accompanied by pre- and post-trip activities. Separate field trips are correlated to Florida's elementary, middle and high school science standards. Please contact Maia McGuire to receive a password to access the site. The site is under development and new field trips are being added, so check back if you don't see what you are looking for.          

Elementary Curricula

18-lesson 3rd grade manatee curriculum 

19-lesson 4th grade cetacean (whale/dolphin) curriculum. Contains 9 lessons on North Atlantic right whales. One lesson has been adapted for 1st grade.

Original book and 10-lesson 5th grade sea turtle curriculum

Habitat-related activities/lesson plans/resources

Beaches

Beach Plants: Photos, common and scientific names of common beach plants in northeast/central Florida.

Beach Scavenger Hunt: Scavenger hunt designed to make participants aware of the sources of items they find on the beach. Includes background information about many of the items on the list, as well as questions for discussion. Works with all ages, best for 2nd grade and older.

Estuaries

Saltmarsh Plants: Photos, common and scientific names of common salt marsh plants in northeast/central Florida.

Edible Estuary Activity: Uses food products to represent the biotic and abiotic components of the estuary. Kids get to eat it when they're done! I've used this with all ages (K-gray). Activity takes about 15 minutes; longer if you talk about each of the components as they are added. Allow time for cleanup at the end!

Estuary Food Web activity: Set of 21 cards, each represents a component of the estuarine food web. Food web activity using yarn (start with producers and pass yarn back and forth between producers and their consumers; repeat for all predator-prey relationships in the food web. Once web is complete, examine what happens when one of the links in the web is removed because of natural causes or human activites.) Designed for 4th grade.

Coastal Hammocks

Coastal Hammock Plants: Photos, common and scientific names of common coastal hammock plants in northeast/central Florida.