The Marine Conservation Society has published an excellent resource to support teachers in planning and leading a trip to the beach. The resource links to the curriculum and includes activity outlines and quick games to be done on the beach, as well as follow up activities to be done back in the classroom. It is aimed at middle primary age children, but could be easily adapted for other ages. Each activity takes approximately 45 minutes, so they suggest that you select two or three activities to complete depending on the length of your beach visit. The resource also contains guidance on health and safety at the beach as well as what to take with you, which will be a welcome relief for trip planners and leaders!
One of the activities is a ‘Litter Search’, linking to the current issues around marine conservation and human impacts on the environment. The resource includes a student survey sheet which can be printed off before the trip and used during the activity to record what has been found. This is an incredibly important and current issue with more and more shocking videos popping up online of marine life swimming in plastic polluted seas.
The ‘Tangled Web’ activity introduces children to the role turtles play in the marine ecosystem and provides a fun insight into ecosystems and food webs. Each child in the class will represent a different component of the web and establish how they are related the other components. These include sea grass, sharks, the sun, coral reef, crabs and fishermen among many others. A selected student is given a ball of string. When they make a connection between their self and another component, they hold the end of the string and pass the ball on to another child (component) to represent the connection, and so on until a web is formed. This is a great visual and interactive way of teaching children the role of turtles and how they are connected to other elements of the marine ecosystem. You may even wish to print pictures of each role before the trip so that children can clearly see what component they are representing.
One of 10 children in the UK have never been to the beach, so a learning outside the classroom trip to the beach may introduce some children in your group to an entirely new and exciting environment. If you are inspired to start planning a beach visit, you can access the resource here.
