Acadia National Park Education District
Shoreline Discovery
Grade 5
PROGRAM GOALS:
- To increase students’ knowledge of and appreciation for the natural history of Maine’s coastal ecosystems.
- To foster a sense of respect and stewardship for Acadia’s shoreline.
- To assist students in understanding the park’s role in preserving and protecting the coastal environment.
PROGRAM OBJECTIVES:
Students will be able to:
- Describe three factors affecting tides.
- Compare and contrast the characteristics of three coastal ecosystems at Acadia.
- Identify two challenges and two related adaptations of organisms found in each coastal ecosystem.
- Name two ways the NPS protects and preserves Acadia’s coastline.
- List three aspects of proper tide pool etiquette.
- Understand and explain three ecological concepts.
- Identify two plants and two animals by their physiological structure.
ALIGNMENT WITH MAINE’S LEARNING RESULTS FOR MIDDLE GRADES:
Science and Technology
A. Classifying Life Forms
Students will understand that there are similarities within the diversity of all living things.
Students will be able to:
- Describe some structural and behavioral adaptations that allow organisms to survive in a changing environment (A-3).
B. Ecology
Students will understand how living things depend on one another and on non-living aspects of the environment.
Students will be able to:
- Analyze how the finite resources in an ecosystem limit the types and populations of organisms within it (B-2).
- Describe succession and other ways that ecosystems can change over time (B-3).
- Generate examples of the variety of ways that organisms interact (e.g. competition, predator/prey, parasitism/mutualism) (B-4).
D. Continuity and Change
Students will understand that there are similarities within the diversity of living things.
Students will be able to:
- Provide examples of the concept of natural and artificial selection and its role in species changes over time (D-3).
F. The Earth
Students will gain knowledge about the earth and the processes that change it.
Students will be able to:
- Describe factors that can cause short-term and long-term changes to the earth (F-4).
I. Motion
Students will understand the motion of objects and how forces can change that motion.
Students will be able to:
- Describe the motion of objects using knowledge of Newton's Laws (I-1).
Alignment with additional learning results may occur during programming.
4-2004
