Below are resources to help facilitate success in your sea turtle global education project.
- Sea Turtle and Conservation Books
- Story Writing & Collaborative Writing:
- Sea Turtle Information & Lesson Plans. Many of these sites have accredited lesson plans for K-12.
- Endangered Species Resources
- Global Warming: effects on sea turtles, oceans and beaches
- General Resources
- Interactive Quizzes & Games.
*There is a modified version of these resources on our Kid-Friendly Resource page.
Use Goodsearch to Save Sea Turtles!
Sea Turtle & Conservation Books
Reading is Fundamental Story Sampler:
http://www.rif.org/assets/Documents/StorySamplers/SeaTurtles.pdf
An excellent sea turtle resource created on a book-based thematic approach for ages 5-12. The site offers wonderful suggestions of sea turtle stories that will inspire students to formulate their own story. The story sampler will take you through pre-activities, hands-on activities and community action.
Sea World provides a list of books for young readers:
http://www.seaworld.org/animal-info/info-books/sea-turtle/
books-for-young-readers.htm
Printable poem, “The Turtle Tale”
Sea Turtle, Inc has a list of books for all ages http://www.seaturtleinc.com/store/books.html
NOAA has a free online book in English and Hawaiian: http://www.yoto98.noaa.gov/books/seaturtles/seatur1.htm
Ocean Conservancy http://www.oceanconservancy.org/site/
PageServer?pagename=fw_turtles has a free download (34 Pages) English/Spanish coloring book with detailed turtle facts and conservation practices.
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Story Writing & Collaborative Writing
Read, Write, Think has an interactive story-writing guide http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=221
Concordia University Wisconson. “How to Write a Short Story” by Wendy Rissman provides a formula for short story writing.
Learning @ Hand: Lesson plan for round table story writing that could be adapted for your story: http://www.learningathand.com/curriculum/
view.php?v=all&c=9
National Writing Project lists many collaborative ideas, such as this one where the students create a map, which is a great way of developing the location of your turtle story
http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/2147
http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/461 This section concentrates on poetry, but could be for stories to encourage more vivid language.
Squigly’s Story Builder for Kids:
http://www.squiglysplayhouse.com/WritingCorner/
StoryBuilder/index.html is for young children and shows that a very simple, short story can be created when a child fills in the blanks using different words such as names, place, numbers, etc. Once submitted, Squigly creates a story from the list of words
Mrs. McGowan's Class is a First Grade classroom that wrote a collaborative in-class story. The technique can also be used with partnering teachers. http://www.mrsmcgowan.com/1stgrade/belles_journey.htm
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Collaborative Writing Pedagogy
New Century College has collaborative strategies and suggests 6 distinct roles for each collaborative writing small group. http://www.lastdaysaloon.com/
Dartmouth Writing Program discusses the advantages of writing as a group and suggested ways of evaluation http://www.dartmouth.edu/~writing/materials/faculty/
methods/collaborative.shtml
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Sea Turtle Information & Lesson Plans
Academic Kids (for older kids) is more of a generic website with general information on sea turtles and the leatherback sea turtle. Embedded within the text is relevant vocabulary that links directly to a definition. http://academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/
Leatherback_Sea_Turtle
Bridge has many links that relate to ocean and marine life topics and lesson plans for K-12 http://www.vims.edu/bridge/
Bridge, in conjunction with Marine-education http://www.marine-ed.org/bridge/survivor.pdf, designed as a “Middle and High School Classroom Resource” has National Science Education Correlation Standards and provides extensive information along with “Survivor” sea turtle learning activities.
The Caribbean Conservation Corporation has been teaching the world about sea turtles for many years and provides many sea turtle facts and photos http://www.cccturtle.org/turtletides.php and a free online educational guide on sea turtle migration and satellite tracking. http://www.cccturtle.org/satellitetracking.php?page=educatorsguide
Cornish, Jim, “Elementary Themes” featured in Classroom Connect http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/CITE/st_tur&tor.htm is a Sea Turtle resource for elementary teachers with links for lessons, themes, and activities. This site also has a great number of other themes.
Conservation International provides many resources and also works with State of the World’s Sea Turtles (S.W.O.T ) to publish scientific turtle data from around the world: http://www.conservation.org/
Search/
Results.aspx?k=sea%20turtles
EuroTurtle: Frequently asked questions about sea turtles: http://www.euroturtle.org/FAQ.htm
Also, this link has a great general sea turtle page with much information and is available in different languages: http://www.euroturtle.org/intro_eng.htm
The Great Turtle Race is a fun site that focuses the Leatherback sea turtle with interactive games, lesson plans, vocabulary and educational resources. For class K-5 see http://turtlerace.eirc.org/website/Introduction/K~5.html and for additional activities, view http://turtlerace.eirc.org/website/
Student-Activities.html
Teacher Lessons http://turtlerace.eirc.org/website/
Teacher-Page.html
Geocities provides some hands-on activities:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Atrium/5924/
endangeredoceans.htm
National Geographic offers free teacher lessons and material
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/ For example, they have lessons on Leatherback sea turtles: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/
xpeditions/lessons/09/
gk2/migrationturtles.html
National Marine Fisheries Service: “ The Kid’s Time” has information on all species of sea turtles
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/education/
kids_times_turtle_loggerhead.pdf
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association NOAA has wonderful resources for all videos and materials about the ocean http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/education/welcome.html
Accredited lesson plan for grades 2-8 focusing on the threats hatchling turtles face and survival of the species: “Endangered Marine Turtles” with game, “ The Race”
Ocean Live http://www.oceanslive.org/portal/ has videos about the ocean. To find a video of the Loggerhead sea turtle look under archived videos.
PBS offers lessons plans prepared for different age groups. PBS movie Voyage of the Lonely Turtle complements these lessons http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/turtles/educators_lesson1.html
Save the Turtles, Inc www.costaricaturtles.org (yes, this is us) and we have great photos, sea turtle information and our education global connection.
San Diego Zoo: Activities for grades 6-9 learn about bio-diversity, saving energy and ecological footprint. http://www.sandiegozoo.org/teachers/images/
biodiversity_activity.pdf
This link defines the difference between turtle, tortoise and terrapin:
http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/t-turtle.html
Sea Turtle, Inc is an interactive site in Spanish/ English, and you can click on a turtle species and learn more information
http://www.seaturtleinc.com/turtles.html
Sea Turtle Organization: Great resource for turtle information, the Marine News letter, information on the Annual Turtle Symposiums, and a wonderful image library: http://www.seaturtle.org/
Sea Turtle Restoration Project is a rich and diverse website, full of political action for conservation, as well as a lesson plans, free educational fact sheets and suggested readings. http://www.seaturtles.org/
lesson_plans2.cfm?lessonPlanID=8
STRP also has a lesson kit about Leatherback Sea Turtles http://www.seaturtles.org/pdf/ACF173.pdf
Free fact sheets on all species and the threats: http://www.seaturtles.org/edu_materials.cfm
Sea Turtle Webquest provides many links and sea turtle information. Scavenger hunt (can be geared to higher grade levels) for all ages to learn about sea turtles and how to can protect them. http://www.suttonschools.net/teachers/watts/index.htm
Sea World has turtle information: http://www.seaworld.org/infobooks/SeaTurtle/home.html
Additional information on taxonomy, species, photos, behavior, etc.: http://www.seaworld.org/animal-info/info-books/
sea-turtle/scientific-classification.htm
University of South Florida & Florida Marine Research Institute: “Project Oceanography” http://www.marine.usf.edu/pjocean/packets/f02/f02u1.pdf has sea turtle lessons with objectives across the curriculum. Advanced levels:(science and math)
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National Geographic: Accredited lesson plan on Endangered Species (offers K-12) http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/08/g35/
U.S. Fish and Wildlife: Endangered Species Program: http://www.fws.gov/endangered/
International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources: http://www.iucnredlist.org/
CLN http://www.cln.org/themes/endangered.html offers many themes and lessons plans.
World Wildlife: http://www.worldwildlife.org/endangered/
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Global Warming: effects on sea turtles, oceans and beaches
Environmental Protection Agency: http://epa.gov/climatechange/effects/coastal/SLRLandUse.html
National Geographic: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/
xpeditions/
lessons/08/g68/seatoshiningsea2.html
Seed Magazine: http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/09/
male_turtles_cant_stand_the_he.php
Greenpeace: http://archive.greenpeace.org/climate/database/
records/zgpz0515.html
National Wildlife Magazine: http://www.nwf.org/nationalwildlife/
printerFriendly.cfm?issueID=107&articleID=1342
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National Geographic http://www.nationalgeographic.com/seamonsters/
timeline/#introduction has a wonderful interactive time line: This is a fabulous site prior to beginning “Ride the Turtle Rainbow Time Machine”, our story prompt. It takes students into the different time periods and allows them to view animals in 3D!
Division of Fish and Wildlife…Government of the Virgin Islands: Excellent graphic which can be enlarged to show sea turtle anatomy such as scutes, carapace, prefrontal scales, etc. “Identification Key of Sea Turtles of Americas”
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b194/chenpn/chenpndotcom/
identification1.gif
Extinction resources: Photos and information
http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/gotq_extinct.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_animals
Classroom idea: Use Goodsearch, and type in the name of your state, country, and the word animals, extinct. What comes up?
Mythology: http://www.cyberpoet.com/TurtleMythology.html
http://www.turtlehill.org/isle.html
Pollution
Conservation International http://www.conservation.org/FMG/Articles/Pages/01180802.aspx explores the problems sea turrles face due to plastic debris.
Art Project:
Princeton Online offers an art project for grades 4-6 developed by Patti Caiola http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/elem/Patti-sea.htm
Create a Blog: A way to share ideas in your story writing process
WikiHow provides information how to create a blog http://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Blog
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Caribbean Conservation Corporation:
Games & Quizzes: http://www.cccturtle.org/turtletides.php?page=games
National Geographic: “Turtles in Trouble” illustrates the threats to sea turtle survival http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngkids/9911/
turtle/turtle.html
Euroturtle demonstrates the cycle of life, and the threats sea turtles face: http://www.euroturtle.org/game/eduadv.htm
Wonderful interactive tool for learning basic biology of the turtle: http://www.euroturtle.org/clickt/clickt.htm
Another great game whereby you can choose what happens next with the sea turtles: http://www.euroturtle.org/game/
brain/loc(18).htm
Sea World: “A Calculating Turtle Tale” Use your calculator to complete this turtle story!
http://www.seaworld.org/just-for-teachers/
classroom-activities/4-8/pdf/A%20Calculating%20Turtle%20Tale.pdf
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