Florida's Fantastic Sea Turtles An at-home lesson and coloring book for grades K-2
Produced by:
This educational workbook was produced through the support of the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program.
Sea turtles live in warm ocean waters all around the world. Young sea turtles live in shallow areas, like coral reefs and seagrass beds. Adults are equally at home in the open ocean.
Florida Oceanographic Society is located on the east coast of Florida, a very special place for sea turtles. The beaches in this part of Florida are some of the most important sea turtle nesting areas on earth! Plus, seagrass beds in the Indian River Lagoon Estuary and coral reefs off our beaches provide a perfect nursery for young sea turtles.
1 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org What is a Sea Turtle? Sea turtles are reptiles. Lizards,
Snakes,
and alligators are also reptiles.
But what is a reptile?
2 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Sea Turtles are Reptiles Reptiles have five things that make them different from other types of animals. All reptiles have a backbone. They also have scales covering the outside of their bodies.
Most reptiles lay eggs.
They breathe air with lungs —just like you and me!
Reptiles also use the outside temperature to warm or cool their insides; scientists call these kinds of animals cold-blooded.
3 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Different Types of Turtles There are many types of turtles in the world. Freshwater Turtles Freshwater turtles live in lakes, rivers, and streams and have webbed feet for swimming.
Tortoises Tortoises like to live on land and have flat feet with claws for digging and walking.
Sea Turtles Sea turtles are the only turtles that live in the ocean.
4 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Sea Turtle Adaptations Sea turtles have many adaptations, or things that help them survive in the environment they live in. Since sea turtles live in the ocean, they have to drink salty ocean water. Drinking salty water would make you and me sick, but sea turtles have a special trick. They cry super salty tears to help get rid of all of that extra salt.
Sea turtles use long, flat flippers to swim around the ocean. They can swim as fast as 20 miles per hour!
Their shell is also flattened and smooth to help them cut through the water. The big scales on a turtle’s shell are called scutes.
Young sea turtles have great camouflage, meaning that they are able to blend in with their environment.
5 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Sea Turtle Species There are seven different species, or types, of sea turtles in the world. Five sea turtle species live off Florida’s coast, but only three of them make nests on our beaches.
Loggerhead Sea Turtle
Loggerhead sea turtles are the most common sea turtle species in Florida. They get their name from their large, log-shaped head. Loggerhead sea turtles grow to more than three feet in length, and can weigh as much as 300 pounds! They love to eat hard-shelled animals, like crabs, snails, lobsters, and clams.
6 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Green Sea Turtle
Green sea turtles are the second-largest sea turtles in the world! They can grow to more than four feet in length, and can weigh more than 400 pounds! Adult green sea turtles like to eat plants, especially seagrass and seaweed. This food turns the fat inside of their shell green, giving them their name. Younger green sea turtles also like crabs, shrimp, snails, and jellyfish.
7 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Leatherback Sea Turtles
Leatherback sea turtles are the largest turtles on Earth. They grow to more than 7 feet in length and 800 to 1,500 pounds! Leatherback sea turtles don’t have a hard bony shell like other sea turtles. Instead, they have a strong, flexible shell that won’t break under pressure. This lets them dive more than a mile underwater in search of their favorite food, jellyfish.
8 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Sea Turtle Habitats Did you know that sea turtles can live for more than 80 years?
The first two months of a sea turtle’s life are spent buried in the sand inside an egg.
When a sea turtle hatches out of its egg, it is called a hatchling.
Once in the water, hatchlings swim far out into the open ocean, where they hang out in floating patches of seaweed called Sargassum. They float, eat, and grow into juveniles and then subadults, meaning they are almost completely grown up.
Once they are fully grown adults, mother sea turtles will swim back to the same beach they hatched on to lay their own eggs.
9 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Sea Turtle Nesting Process When it’s time to lay eggs, a mother sea turtle will crawl from the ocean up onto the beach. Most sea turtles lay their eggs at night, when the sand is cooler and there are fewer predators to worry about.
Once she finds a spot she likes, the mama turtle starts digging with her flippers and will lay about 75-100 eggs into a hole in the sand.
The mother crawls back into the ocean when she is finished, leaving her nest hidden two feet under the sand.
10 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Sea Turtle Predators Sea turtles have a hard, protective shell to keep them safe from predators, but hatchlings still have to be careful when they are crawling from their nest towards the ocean.
This is a dangerous journey for a baby sea turtle, since hungry crabs, birds, raccoons, and even fire ants might see them as food.
In the ocean, baby sea turtles try their best to hide from hungry fish and seabirds.
Thankfully, once sea turtles are fully grown, they are safe from all but the biggest predators.
11 Threats to Sea Turtles Sea turtles are very rare and special animals. In most parts of the world, sea turtles are protected by the law. This means that people are not allowed to harm a sea turtle. Sadly, sea turtles are not protected everywhere. In some places, sea turtles and their eggs are used for food and their shells made into jewelry.
Sea turtles can be accidentally caught in fishing nets or hooked by certain types of fishing gear.
Boats and boat propellers can hurt a sea turtle when it comes up for a breath of air.
12 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Threats to Sea Turtles
A big threat to sea turtles is all of the trash floating around in the ocean. Sea turtles accidentally eat little pieces of plastic, thinking it’s food. This can make them really sick! Plastic bags and balloons are especially bad, because they look like jellyfish to a turtle.
Even the health of our whole planet can affect sea turtles. Years of pollution are causing Earth’s climate to change. In some places, our planet is getting too hot. Unusually hot temperatures can cause most sea turtle hatchlings to become girls. This isn’t good news, since there needs to be both boy and girl sea turtles in the ocean. Hot temperatures are also causing our oceans to rise. Because sea turtles nest on the beach, even tiny changes in sea level can cause nests to flood.
13 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org How can you help sea turtles? How you can help: 1. Ask your family to use reusable bags at the grocery store so less plastic ends up in the ocean. 2. Stay off the beach at night during sea turtle nesting season—March 1st to October 31st in our part of Florida. Sea turtles think people are predators, so you and your family might accidentally scare a momma, causing her to stop nesting. 3. Participate in a beach cleanup. You can also hold your own if you want—just pick up a few pieces of trash every time you visit the beach. 4. If you make a sand castle or dig a big hole in the sand, always flatten it back out before you leave the beach. This will leave a smooth path for nesting momma turtles, as well as hatchlings. 5. Don’t leave beach chairs or umbrellas out on the beach overnight. They might scare a nesting turtle, or block her path up the beach. 6. Teach your friends and family what you’ve learned about sea turtles.
14 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Sea Turtle Word Search Use the vocabulary listed below and circle the words in your search. Words can be found up and down and side-to-side.
B H Z S S C U T E B
E C R E P T I L E H
A B C K M W T S E A
C S C A L E E R F T
H A T C H L I N G U
Z O T F L I P P E R
T O R T O I S E B T
R S A L T Z P B J L
W O A R S H E L L E
A A G V U E K Z J U
BEACH FLIPPER HATCHLING REPTILE SALT SCALE SCUTE SEA SHELL TORTOISE TURTLE
15 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Sea Turtle Handwriting Practice Trace the letters below. Sea Turtle Green Loggerhead Leatherback Scutes and Scales Reptile Beach Hatchling Ocean Flipper
16 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Hatchling Hazards Can you help the hatchling reach the Sargasso Sea?
Hatchlings and all sea turtles struggle to survive many different hazards, including:
Lights Seen Crabs on the Sharks and Fish Beach
Sandcastles, Toys, Fishing Gear and Holes on the and Nets Beach Plastic Boat Propellers Birds 17 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Count the Scutes
Solve the math problems to color the sea turtle’s shell. Use the key to figure out how many lateral scutes this sea turtle has.
3+3
8-3 3+0 3+2 5-2 4+1
5+1 8+1 6-3 6-1 7-4 7+2 7-1 7-2 10-1 9-6
6+3 KEY 5+4 3 = Purple 10-4 9 & 5= Red 6 = Blue
8-2
The vertebral scutes of a sea turtle, in red, run down the middle of their back. The lateral scutes, in purple, are located on either side. The number of lateral scutes on a turtle’s shell can tell us which species it is. Green sea turtles have 8 lateral scutes (4 on each side) and loggerhead sea turtles have 10 lateral scutes (5 on each side). How many lateral scutes are on this sea turtle’s shell? Is it a green or loggerhead sea
turtle? Answer: 10 lateral scutes; loggerhead loggerhead scutes; lateral 10 Answer: 18 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Swimming in the Deep Blue Sea Instructions: Color the animals below, then count how many of each animal there are. You can put your answers in the boxes below.
19 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Food or Foe? Instructions: Below are pictures of food that this sea turtle should eat and things that aren't sea turtle food. Circle what you think is sea turtle food and cross out what you think is not. Then you can color the page.
20 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Symmetry the Sea Turtle Instructions: This sea turtle is not quite finished. To finish the sea turtle drawing, fold this paper in half along the dotted line, then hold it up against a window and draw the other half of the sea turtle.
21 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Sea Turtle Life Cycle Instructions: Cut these out on the dotted line, then put the sea turtle life cycle in order.
22 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Matching numbers Instructions: First fill out the dotted line numbers, then draw a line to match the number to the amount of each animal below.
23 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Create a sentence! Instructions: Below there are words floating around. Put them together to create a sentence about sea turtles.
turtle The ocean
in
sea
the
swims
______
24 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Dinner Is Served! Match the sea turtle to its favorite food. Remember— most sea turtles like to eat more than one kind of food.
Jellyfish
Loggerhead Algae/seaweed
Shrimp
Seagrass
Leatherback
Crab
Lobster Green 25 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Connect the Dots Connect the dots to create a Leatherback Sea Turtle. 68 67 66 69 65 70 74 75 71 64 76 63 72 55 54 77 62 73 53 78 61 56 52 79 60 57 51 58 50 80 59 49 81 48 82 47 84 83 85 46 86 9 45 8 87 10 44 7
11 88 6 43
42 12 5 41 89 40 4 13 39 90 14 3 38
15 91 37 2 36 16 92 35 17 1 32 18 31 34 19 33 30 20 29 21 28 22 27
23 26 25 24 26 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org Connect the Dots Connect the dots to create a Green Sea Turtle.
102 103 104 101 105 100 106 99 107 98 108 109 97 110 111 88 89 90 96 87 91 95 112 9293 94 113/1 86 2 3 8584 114 4 83 5 82 81 115 80 6 79 116 78 7 77 117 8 74 75 76 9 73 10 11 12 118 13 14 72 57 15 119 16 17 71 58 120 18 56 70 59 121 27 26 25 19 55 122 22 20 60 28 24 23 21 69 123 61 54 124 29 62 130 125 53/131 127 126 30 68 63 129 128 32 31 33 64 34 67 52 48 35 65 51 49 66 50 47 36 46 37
45 38 39 44 40 43 41 42
27 Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center 890 NE Ocean Blvd. Stuart, FL 34996 (772) 225-0505 www.floridaocean.org