Lesson Title: Why swim, float, or stick? ​

Unit: Living Breakwaters (LB) Curriculum: Restoration and Resilience in Raritan Bay ​ Sub-Unit: LB Habitats Series: what’s the best habitat? ​

LESSON OVERVIEW

Grade: 6-8 Class Periods: 1-2 Setting: classroom Subject Area(s): science

Lesson Summary Students simulate the positions in the water column -- and the associated motility/sessility strategies -- of a variety of Living Breakwaters critters at different stages in their life cycles. Then students observe patterns in these positions and strategies, and draw inferences about the relationship between life stage, position in the water column, and motility/sessility strategy.

Objective(s) ● Envision estuarine habitats in three dimensions. ● Categorize water column positions (benthic/pelagic) and motility/sessility strategies (nekton, , sessile) ● Draw inferences about the relationships between pelagic/benthic positions in the water column and swimming/planktonic/sessile life stages.

MATERIALS & RESOURCES

Supplies ● String (depending on how many students you have you may need a couple hundred yards and it’s always good to have extra)

● Scissors

● Basic classroom supplies like markers and paper

● Optional: a bucket or fish tank full of water, and some items that can float in the water. You might use this to demonstrate how water currents push and pull planktonic organisms in different directions

Handouts ● Observations / Inferences / Questions about underwater habitat ● Inhabitants of Raritan Bay Cards - this card set includes the life cycle cards (teal background) ​ for the following critters. For this lesson you’ll want to use at least one or two from each of the following categories. a. Pretty much floating wherever the currents take them (planktonic) i. Oyster embryo inside egg

ii. Oyster free-swimming iii. Striped bass yolk-sac larva iv. Striped bass feeding larva v. Feather blenny yolk-sac larva vi. Feather blenny feeding larva vii. Eelgrass mature seed b. Pretty much stuck in one place (sessile) i. Oyster juvenile spat ii. Feather blenny embryo inside egg iii. Eelgrass embryo iv. Eelgrass seedling c. Movers, in or near the bottom all the time, or nearly all the time - some of these prefer hard structure but can live in or over soft bottom. They have different ways of moving around. (Motile benthic and epibenthic) i. Oyster settler larva ii. Blue crab juvenile d. Swimmers, always near a hard structure (pelagic, structure-oriented) i. Striped bass juvenile ii. Eel elver settler juvenile iii. Feather blenny juvenile e. Swimmers who live in open water, so if you see them at LB, they’re stopping by i. Eel glass juvenile ii. Eel silver adult f. Hardest to categorize i. Blue crab megalops larva - hard to categorize because it represents the blue crab’s transition from pelagic to benthic lifestyle

● The Inhabitants of Raritan Bay Cards set also includes the juv-adult species cards (white ​ ​ background) for the following critters. Depending on the number of students you have, choose additional cards from among the following taxa, which might be observed at the Living Breakwaters site. Between these and the previous list, be sure you have all the categories represented: a. Pretty much floating wherever the currents take them (planktonic) i. Diatoms ii. Dinoflagellates iii. Calanoid copepod iv. Lion’s mane

b. Pretty much stuck in one place (sessile) i. Eastern oyster (adult) ii. Blue mussel iii. Barnacle iv. Eelgrass (adult) v. Sea lettuce vi. Bladder wrack vii. Tubular hydroid

viii. Ghost anemone - probably the least sessile, the ghost anemone does crawl along its surface. It’s in this group because, like all the other in this group, its feeding strategy depends on being stuck to a hard surface.

c. Movers, in or near the bottom all the time, or nearly all the time - some of these prefer hard structure but can live in or over soft bottom. They have different ways of moving around. (Motile benthic and epibenthic) i. Hard clam ii. Blue crab (adult) iii. Summer flounder iv. Winter flounder v. American sand lance vi. Gammarid amphipod - some types (some tube-building amphipods are more sessile and require hard structure) vii. Caprellid amphipod viii. Bristle worms - some types (some tube-building bristleworms are more sessile and require hard structure) ix. Shore shrimp, grass shrimp x. Oyster drill

d. Swimmers, always near a hard structure (pelagic, structure-oriented) i. Cunner ii. Naked goby iii. Feather blenny (adult) iv. Oyster toadfish

e. Swimmers who live in open water, so if you see them at LB, they’re stopping by (pelagic, and feed on some or all of the above) i. Atlantic menhaden ii. Atlantic silversides - arguably silversides could go in the ‘movers in or near the bottom’ category: when they’re onshore, in the warmer months, that’s a good description of their habitat. But in winter they migrate far offshore. They are also schooling fish, which is a pelagic defense strategy. Many of these open water swimmers also school, and none of the other motile benthic animals school. iii. Bay anchovy iv. Atlantic striped bass (adult) v. Bluefish

Lesson Materials ● Aquarium sounds - from Youtube, but you only need the audio ​ ● photo of a gap between rocks in Raritan Bay

Vocabulary ● Plankton, planktonic - plankton are organisms that float where the water carries them. Many ​ don’t swim at all. Some do swim, but for the most part they can’t swim well enough to resist the water currents. That is especially common in fish larvae, who can propel themselves

forward in still water, but don’t live in still water.

● Benthos, benthic - benthos are organisms that live near, on, or in the bottom sediments or ​ surfaces. Benthic organisms spend most or all of their time at the bottom of the water column.

● Water column - an imaginary vertical tube of water that reaches from the bottom to the ​ surface. People talk about the water column when they want to say something about a vertical ​ location within the water: at the bottom, at the surface, or somewhere in between. Picturing an ​ imaginary vertical column of water helps some people remember that the water is a three-dimensional environment.

● Pelagic - swimming. Pelagic organisms swim effectively, usually in pretty open water. ​

● Open water - just water, where there are not a lot of other things in the way (such as rocks, ​ the shore, oyster reefs, or eelgrass beds)

● Structure-oriented - Fish that are structure-oriented do best when they can live near a ​ complex hard structure, such as an oyster reef. They find shelter (and often food) in the nooks and crannies of a complex underwater structure.

If you wanted to build an intricate, three-dimensional structure, you’d probably do that with blocks rather than mud. In the same way, underwater structures are generally composed of hard surfaces, like rocks and shells. But one big exception is eelgrass meadows.

A leaf of eelgrass is certainly not hard like a rock or a shell. And yet eelgrass somehow provides complex three-dimensional habitat for many other species -- although not necessarily the exact same set of critters that would inhabit an oyster reef or a rock structure like one of the breakwaters. Maybe you have an idea how eelgrass can be soft and still create three-dimensional structure?

One thing is for sure: this neat trick of eelgrass only works in the water. If you saw eelgrass out of the water (where it would be dying, because it needs to stay rooted underwater -- so don’t actually take eelgrass out of the water! But if you did...), it would look pretty floppy.

● Sessile - stuck in one place, not moving. Sessile organisms actually do move, at least at ​ ​ ​ some point during their life cycle. People call an organism sessile if it has to be stuck to ​ ​ something at some point in its life cycle. ​ ​

For example, oysters have to be stuck to something as juveniles and adults, so they can go after oxygen and food. Detached juvenile and adult oysters are likely to end up buried in sediment, where they would quickly suffocate.

Furthermore, even when sessile animals are stuck in one place, they don’t just wait for oxygen and food to come their way. From their sessile position, sessile animals move parts of their ​ ​ bodies. Rather than move their bodies through the water, sessile animals generally bring the water to or through their bodies. For example, oysters feed and get oxygen by creating a strong water current. They move tiny inside parts of their bodies very quickly and with incredible coordination to produce that water current through their shells. They create that flow

of water to pull oxygen and food particles toward them, and to push their waste away from them.

And finally, it’s rare to find a healthy sessile organism in still water. Sessile organisms do well in places where the water is moving enough to bring food and oxygen in their direction and carry waste away from them. But the water also can’t be moving too fast, because sessile organisms need to stay stuck to their surface, and not be washed away by the currents. So it’s also rare to find sessile organisms in places with very strong currents.

In that way, sessile organisms are like Goldilocks: the water needs to move around them not too fast, and not too slow, but just the right amount. A lot of living things are like Goldilocks.

BEFORE YOU GET STARTED

Preparation ● Cards should be printed with the photograph on one side of the card and the information on the other side of the card.

● All cards should be laminated, hole punched and strung, so they hang around a student’s neck. This allows the students to be hands-free during the activity.

INSTRUCTION PLAN

Engage 1. The desks are at the perimeter of the room, and most of the chairs are with the desks. A few small groups of chairs are placed in a few different parts of the room, back to back. Aquarium ​ sounds can be heard in the background. The photo of a gap between rocks in Raritan Bay is ​ ​ ​ projected on one wall -- the backdrop for the classroom-sized aquarium you and your students will now simulate.

2. Set the scene for the students: ○ Imagine this classroom is a large aquarium. The floor is the bottom of the aquarium. The water is all around us. The groups of chairs are hard structures inside the aquarium. What kinds of hard structures might you put in an aquarium? Why?

3. Introduce swimming organisms to the scene: ○ We have swimming animals in our aquarium. Who can illustrate the motion of a swimming , like a fish, through this aquarium? ■ One student volunteers to act out how a swimming animal moves through the water. A couple of other students build on or modify this type of movement.

4. The class writes a description of this movement -- including something along the lines of ‘moving purposefully from one place to another’.

Explore 1. Incorporate plankton into the room-sized aquarium:

○ What about plankton? ■ Students may need to check out some of the Inhabitants of Raritan Bay Cards, ​ ​ and/or the vocabulary set for this lesson

■ In case you think this might resonate: in Spongebob Squarepants, the character called Plankton is a copepod -- one of our LB inhabitants!

■ Optional: simulate planktonic motion with objects that float in a bucket or fishtank full of water. Student volunteers can put their hands in the water to create a water current, and the class can observe how the floating objects move (or don’t move) in response to the water movements.

○ How could we act out planktonic motion?”

■ A few students act out planktonic motion.

2. The class writes a description of this movement, in contrast with swimming -- including something along the lines of ‘moving aimlessly in all different directions’.

Explain 1. Each student selects one Inhabitants of Raritan Bay Card (see Handouts, above), and wears it ​ ​ ​ ​ around their neck, so that others can see.

2. The organisms take their places: ○ In a moment you will find others like you and work together. Right now: ■ If you are benthic, sit on the floor. ● If your critter moves in or near the bottom, you can move along the floor without standing up.

■ If you are stuck to a surface, sit on one of the chairs in the middle of the room.

■ If you can swim, move like a swimmer.

■ If you are plankton, move like plankton.

3. Students group themselves with others who seem to move (or not) in a similar way, and to occupy similar parts of the aquarium. Once grouped, they can pull chairs up to a group of desks and sit there together. ○ Students complete Life as… , which asks them to compare and contrast the critters in ​ ​ their group, draw inferences about the advantages and disadvantages of this way of life, and record questions that come up along the way.

4. Some or all of the groups present their ideas to the class and take questions.

Elaborate Discuss as a class: 1. Which is the best habitat? ○ The bottom, the middle, or the surface of the water?

○ The sediment or a hard surface?

2. Which is the best strategy for taking advantage of the best habitat? ○ Staying put or moving? ○ Which way of moving? Which way of staying put?

Evaluate In a class discussion, students critique the simulation / model of the three-dimensional underwater habitat near the Living Breakwaters. Ask questions like:

● What are some strengths of our model? What do you think it helped to illustrate or reveal?

● What are some weaknesses of our model? What is misleading about the way we simulated the three-dimensional underwater habitat -- compared to a real one?

● Can you think of some ways to make the model more useful?

● What if we wanted to model Raritan Bay, rather than an aquarium: what should we change about our simulation?

Extend Students choreograph a more elaborate simulation of different critters movements (or not) in the water column. It can tell a story about ● A life cycle ● A day in the estuary ● A year in the estuary

FEATURED IMAGE Featured image:

Featured image credit: underwater photo in Raritan Bay courtesy of SeArc Ecological Marine ​ ​ Consulting

STANDARDS

NYC Scope and Sequence Science 6-8 Science and Engineering Practices ● Develop and use a model to describe, test, and predict more abstract phenomena ● argument that supports or refutes claims for either explanations or solutions about the natural and designed world(s).

Crosscutting Concepts ● Patterns can be used to identify cause and effect relationships. (MS-LS2-2) ● Phenomena may have more than one cause, and some cause and effect relationships in systems can only be described using probability. (MS-LS1-4), (MS-LS1-5) ● Structures… can be visualized… and used to describe how their function depends on the shapes, composition, and relationships among their parts (MS-LS3-1)

Grade 6, Unit 3: Ecosystems -- Why does the Earth never run out of matter or energy? ​ Disciplinary Core Ideas organized by Performance Expectations ● MS-LS2-1. Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for the effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem. ○ Emphasis is on cause and effect relationships between resources and growth of individual organisms and the numbers of organisms in ecosystems during periods of abundant and scarce resources. ○ Growth of organisms and population increases are limited by access to resources. (MS-LS2-1) ○ In any ecosystem, organisms and populations with similar requirements for food, water, oxygen, or other resources may compete with each other for limited resources, access to which consequently constrains their growth and reproduction. (MS-LS2-1) ○ Organisms, and populations of organisms, are dependent on their environmental interactions both with other living things and with nonliving factors. (MS-LS2-1)

● MS-LS2-2. Construct an explanation that predicts patterns of interactions among organisms in a variety of ecosystems. ○ Emphasis is on predicting patterns of interactions such as competition, predation, mutualism, and parasitism in different ecosystems in terms of the relationships among and between organisms. ○ Predatory interactions may reduce the number of organisms or eliminate whole populations of organisms. Mutually beneficial interactions, in contrast, may become so interdependent that each organism requires the other for survival. Although the species involved in these competitive, predatory, and mutually beneficial interactions vary across ecosystems, the patterns of interactions of organisms with their environments, both living and nonliving, are shared. (MS-LS2-2)

Grade 8, Unit 3: Growth, Development, and Reproduction of Organisms Disciplinary Core Ideas organized by Performance Expectations ● MS-LS1-4. Use argument based on empirical evidence and scientific reasoning to support an explanation for how characteristic animal behaviors and specialized plant structures affect the probability of successful reproduction of animals and plants, respectively.

○ Clarification Statement: Examples of behaviors that affect the probability of animal reproduction could include nest building to protect young from cold, herding of animals to protect young from predators, and vocalization of animals and colorful plumage to attract mates for breeding. Examples of animal behaviors that affect the probability of plant reproduction could include transferring pollen or seeds, and creating conditions for seed germination and growth. Examples of plant structures could include bright flowers attracting butterflies that transfer pollen, flower nectar and odors that attract insects that transfer pollen, and hard shells on nuts that squirrels bury. ○ Animals engage in characteristic behaviors that increase the odds of reproduction. (MS-LS1-4) ○ Plants reproduce in a variety of ways, sometimes depending on animal behavior and specialized features for reproduction. (MS-LS1-4)

● MS-LS1-5. Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for how environmental and genetic factors influence the growth of organisms. ○ Examples of local environmental conditions could include availability of food, light, space, and water. Examples of genetic factors could include the genes responsible for size differences in different breeds of dogs. Examples of evidence could include drought decreasing plant growth, fertilizer increasing plant growth, different varieties of plant seeds growing at different rates in different conditions, and fish growing larger in large ponds than they do in small ponds. ○ Assessment does not include genetic mechanisms, gene regulation, biochemical processes, or natural selection. ○ Genetic factors as well as local conditions affect the growth of the adult plant. (MS-LS1-5)

Grade 8, Unit 4: Evolution, Natural Selection, and Adaptations Disciplinary Core Ideas organized by Performance Expectations ● MS-LS4-3. Analyze displays of pictorial data to compare patterns of similarities in the embryological development across multiple species to identify relationships not evident in the fully formed . ○ Emphasis is on inferring general patterns of relatedness among embryos of different organisms by comparing the macroscopic appearance of diagrams or pictures. ○ Assessment of comparisons is limited to gross appearance of anatomical structures in embryological development. ○ Comparison of the embryological development of different species also reveals similarities that show relationships not evident in the fully-formed anatomy. (MS-LS4-3)

NGSS High School standards

Disciplinary Core Ideas ● LS2.A Interdependent relationships within ecosystems ….The fundamental tension between resource availability and organism populations affects the abundance of species in any given ecosystem

● LS2.D Social interactions and group behavior Group behavior has evolved because membership can increase the chances of survival for individuals and their genetic relatives.

● LS4.A Evidence of common ancestry and diversity The ongoing branching that produces multiple lines of descent can be inferred by comparing DNA sequences, amino acid sequences, and anatomical and embryological evidence of different organisms.

● LS4.C Adaptation Evolution results primarily from genetic variation of individuals in a species, competition for resources, and proliferation of organisms better able to survive and reproduce….

Crosscutting Concepts ● Patterns In grades 9-12, students observe patterns in systems at different scales and cite patterns as empirical evidence for causality in supporting their explanations of phenomena. They recognize classifications or explanations used at one scale may not be useful or need revision using a different scale; thus requiring improved investigations and experiments….

● Systems and system models In grades 9-12, students can investigate or analyze a system by defining its boundaries and initial conditions, as well as its inputs and outputs. They can use models (e.g., physical, mathematical, computer models) to simulate the flow of energy, matter, and interactions within and between systems at different scales. They can also use models and simulations to predict the behavior of a system, and recognize that these predictions have limited precision and reliability due to the assumptions and approximations inherent in the models. They can also design systems to do specific tasks.

● Structure and function In grades 9-12, students investigate systems by examining the properties of different materials, the structures of different components, and their interconnections to reveal the system’s function and/or solve a problem. They infer the functions and properties of natural and designed objects and systems from their overall structure, the way their components are shaped and used, and the molecular substructures of their various materials.

Science and Engineering Practices ● Asking questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineering) ...in 9–12 progresses to formulating, refining, and evaluating empirically testable questions and design problems using models and simulations. ○ Ask questions ■ that arise from careful observation of phenomena, or unexpected results, to clarify and/or seek additional information. ■ that arise from examining models or a theory, to clarify and/or seek additional information and relationships. ■ to clarify and refine a model, an explanation, or an engineering problem.

○ Ask and/or evaluate questions that challenge the premise(s) of an argument, the interpretation of a data set, or the suitability of a design.

● Developing and using models ...in 9-12 progresses to using, synthesizing, and developing models to predict and show relationships among variables between systems and their components in the natural and designed worlds. ○ Develop, revise, and/or use a model based on evidence to illustrate and/or predict the relationships between systems or between components of a system.

● Engaging in argument from evidence ...in 9-12 progresses to using appropriate and sufficient evidence and scientific reasoning to defend and critique claims and explanations about the natural and designed world(s). Arguments may also come from current scientific or historical episodes in science. ○ Construct, use, and/or present an oral and written argument or counter-arguments based on data and evidence. ○ Make and defend a claim based on evidence about the natural world or the effectiveness of a design solution that reflects scientific knowledge...

● Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information ...in 9-12 progresses to evaluating the validity and reliability of the claims, methods, and designs. ○ Communicate scientific and/or technical information or ideas (e.g. about phenomena and/or the process of development and the design and performance of a proposed process or system) in multiple formats (i.e., orally, graphically, textually, mathematically).