Seaweek is New Zealand’s annual national week about the sea. It is hosted by the New Zealand Association for Environmental Education and includes a wide range of events, activities, competitions and opportunities for action. It usually runs for a week from the end of February – early March.
With 75% of New Zealanders living within 10 km of the coast, marine science need not be limited to just 1 week, marine contexts can link to many different science concepts. This resource provides a sample of the Hub's marine resources. Use the Topics and Concepts links at the top of a page to find an even wider variety of teaching resources.
Below is a selection of unit plans and other teacher support materials that we have grouped under possible teaching topics.
- Healthy Seas – Healthy People
- Human impacts on the sea
- Habitats and ecosystems
- Sea creatures
- The ocean’s chemical and physical processes
- The ocean and climate change
- Ecosystem services
- Aquaculture
- Teacher support materials
- Literacy links
Healthy Seas – Healthy People
Restoring mauri after the Rena disaster
Video: Testing for toxins in kaimoana
Interactive: Bioaccumulation in the sea
Student activity: Tracking toxins
Human impacts on the sea
Human impacts on the Bay of Plenty
Human impacts on marine environments
Ecosystem tipping points and stressors
Investigating marine and coastal tipping points
Video: Farmland run-off into estuaries
Video: Our role in ocean acidification
Video: Precision Seafood Harvesting – Changing the Way New Zealand Fishes
Timeline: Fisheries in New Zealand
Student activity: Nutrient impact experiment
Student activity: Fisheries role-play
Student activity: Modelling marine stressors and tipping points
Student activity: Identifying marine stressors
Student activity: Environmental thinking and planning with ecosystem-based management (EBM)
Citizen science project: Marine Metre Squared
Habitats and ecosystems
Young Ocean Explorers episode topics: harbours, kelp
Interactive: Marine ecosystem
Student activity: Where do I live?
Student activity: Estuary metaphors
Sea creatures
New Zealand’s endemic dolphins
Young Ocean Explorers episode topics: rays, crayfish, orcas, triplefins, Sandager’s wrasse, dolphins, kelp, turtles and sharks
Sea star adaptations interactives: dorsal view and ventral view
The ocean’s chemical and physical processes
Student activity: Floating eggs
Student activity: Investigating sea water
Student activity: Water temperature
The ocean and climate change
The ocean and the carbon cycle
Video: Southern Ocean carbon sink
Timeline: The ocean in action
Student activity: Ocean acidification and eggshells
Teacher resource: Teachers learning and planning together
Ecosystem services
Video: Revive our Gulf
Video: Mussels filtering water
Aquaculture
Farming green-lipped mussels – introduction
Extracting bioactives from mussels
Investigating the native sea cucumber for export
Teacher support materials
Join our discussion about marine education and Seaweek – register in our online discussion forum on Slack.
Online professional development
Are you planning for Seaweek or a marine topic? We have it covered in our recorded professional development webinars:
- Diving into marine resources, join us and Steve Hathaway from Young Ocean Explorers, as we introduce some exciting marine teaching and learning resources.
- Seaweek 2016 focuses on marine content and planning.
- Seaweek 2015 focuses on the nature of science and teacher ideas.
Unit plans
Topic planners: Marine resources – food webs, adaptation, marine habitats, marine biodiversity.
Education research and classroom experiences
Adapting SLH activities: providing another context
Supplementing SLH activities with other artefacts
Video: They’ll have it now (exploring ocean water salinity and density)
Literacy links
Useful links
Visit the Seaweek website to find local events, competitions and more.
Visit one or more of the Hub’s Pinterest boards below for more resources:
