Go with the flow Name: ______
Visit the Life on the Edge touch pools to learn about the lives of the animals. Plankton are drifters. They are plants and animals that are carried with the ocean currents. They can be as big as a car and as small as a grain of sand. Puget Sound is full of plankton. Sometimes there’s so much plankton that the water looks green. What color is Puget Sound today?______
There are two kinds of plankton: phytoplankton and zooplankton. One is a producer and one is a consumer Are you a I’m a plant. producer or a consumer? I make my own food I’m an animal. with energy from the sun I eat plants and smaller (circle one) just like trees on land. animals. That means I’m That means I’m a consumer. a producer!
Phytoplankton Zooplankton 1 1. Ask an Aquarium volunteer to show you how to touch the animals gently with one finger. 2. Teach your chaperone how to touch the animals. 3. Check the box next to the animals you have touched or seen.
We are plankton only when we’re babies! When we grow up, we look and move differently. Circle the adult animal name for each baby plankton picture found below.
When I grow up, I When I grow up, I have When I grow up, When I grow up, have many arms and eight legs and a hard I can squeeze into I can swim spit out my stomach small spaces. really fast! when I eat. exoskeleton.
1. I am a(n): 2. I am a(n): 3. I am a(n): 4. I am a(n): octopus – sea star – sea anemone octopus – crab – barnacle octopus – sea star – sea urchin sea snail – barnacle – fish
When I grow When I grow When I grow up, up, I look like a volcano up, I’m prickly. I like I look the same but and catch my food to eat seaweed with bigger! I am plankton with my five sharp teeth. my whole life. my feet.
5. I am a(n): 6. I am a(n): 7. I am a(n): barnacle – sea star – sea anemone sea star – octopus – sea urchin octopus – squid – jelly
2 Jelly 7. urchin Sea 6. Barnacle 5. Fish 4. Octopus 3. Crab 2. star Sea 1. key: Answer The following food web is an example of what eats what in the Puget Sound environment:
Plankton play a very important role in the environment. All animals in the food web below start out as plankton except for one. Which one does not start out as plankton? ______
People are part of the food web too! Draw yourself in this box and draw lines to the things you like to eat Sea o er rockfish
squid
sea star
sea urchins snails
crab
clams zooplankton
phytoplankton kelp We produce Plankton like me about 50% of are the base of the oxygen you the food web! Bonus challenge: breathe! Circle the producers in this food web
3 otter Sea Answer: If you were plankton, About my plankton what would you look like? Draw your very own plankton in the area below. Be creative! Hi! My name is
______(name your plankton)
and I’m phytoplankton / zooplankton. (circle one) I produce / consume my food. (circle one) I have to be careful because
______likes to eat me. (predator)
When I grow up, I am______, large / small (color) (circle one)
and I like to______
______. (activity)
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