With the Life Below Water learning resource, you and your students can explore the issue of marine conservation and the urgent need to protect the world’s seas and oceans.

Discover how millions of tonnes of plastic waste is putting our marine ecosystems at risk – not only endangering marine life, but impacting on the billion plus people who rely on them for food and livelihoods.

Develop your student’s creative collaboration and critical thinking and problem solving skills, as your look at the vital role we can all play in taking action against plastic pollution.

This video takes use down into the ocean to see what habitats await us there. Yep, the ocean has layers and the types of things we encounter there change the deeper we go.

Students are introduced to the structure, function and purpose of locks and dams, which involves an introduction to Pascal's law, water pressure and gravity.

Students use everyday building materials sand, pea gravel, cement and water to create and test pervious pavement. They learn what materials make up a traditional, impervious concrete mix and how pervious pavement mixes differ. Groups are challenged to create their own pervious pavement mixes, experimenting with material ratios to evaluate how infiltration rates change with different mix combinations.

Plastic is in the ocean. We all know it. But how did it get there? Why did no one see it coming? Is it really that big of a problem? Learn more through exploring this interactive map and receive challenges to help you tackle the plastic problem in your own community.

Students leach organic matter from soil to create a water sample with high dissolved organic matter content (DOM), and then make filters to see if the DOM can be removed. They experience the difficulties of removing DOM from water, and learn about other processes that might make DOM removal more effective.

Students observe capillary action in glass tubes of varying sizes. Then they use the capillary action to calculate the surface tension in each tube. They find the average surface tensions and calculate the statistical errors.

Great, short, engaging videos to explain all things about our awesome planet! There are tons of great animal videos here.
These videos can answer a lot of the "wonders" students have.

This NASA initiative covers a wide range of topics including weather, climate, atmosphere, water, energy, plants, and animals.

Students are introduced to our planet's structure and its dynamic system of natural forces through an examination of the natural hazards of earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, tsunamis, floods and tornados, as well as avalanches, fires, hurricanes and thunderstorms. They see how these natural events become disasters when they impact people, and how engineers help to make people safe from them. Students begin by learning about the structure of the Earth; they create clay models showing the Earth's layers, see a continental drift demo, calculate drift over time, and make fault models. They learn how earthquakes happen; they investigate the integrity of structural designs using model seismographs. Using toothpicks and mini-marshmallows, they create and test structures in a simulated earthquake on a tray of Jell-O. Students learn about the causes, composition and types of volcanoes, and watch and measure a class mock eruption demo, observing the phases that change a mountain's shape. Students learn that the different types of landslides are all are the result of gravity, friction and the materials involved. Using a small-scale model of a debris chute, they explore how landslides start in response to variables in material, slope and water content. Students learn about tsunamis, discovering what causes them and makes them so dangerous. Using a table-top-sized tsunami generator, they test how model structures of different material types fare in devastating waves. Students learn about the causes of floods, their benefits and potential for disaster. Using riverbed models made of clay in baking pans, students simulate the impact of different river volumes, floodplain terrain and levee designs in experimental trials. They learn about the basic characteristics, damage and occurrence of tornadoes, examining them closely by creating water vortices in soda bottles. They complete mock engineering analyses of tornado damage, analyze and graph US tornado damage data, and draw and present structure designs intended to withstand high winds.

Students come to see the exponential trend demonstrated through the changing temperatures measured while heating and cooling a beaker of water. This task is accomplished by first appealing to students' real-life heating and cooling experiences, and by showing an example exponential curve. After reviewing the basic principles of heat transfer, students make predictions about the heating and cooling curves of a beaker of tepid water in different environments. During a simple teacher demonstration/experiment, students gather temperature data while a beaker of tepid water cools in an ice water bath, and while it heats up in a hot water bath. They plot the data to create heating and cooling curves, which are recognized as having exponential trends, verifying Newton's result that the change in a sample's temperature is proportional to the difference between the sample's temperature and the temperature of the environment around it. Students apply and explore how their new knowledge may be applied to real-world engineering applications.

Simply put, ocean literacy is understanding the ocean and our relationship with it. But the ocean isn’t so simple to understand! That’s why the Ocean Literacy Framework was developed.

Multilingual Learning Platforms
Web resources, quizzes, videos and badges designed to support educators and help develop an understanding of how humans impact the ocean and how the ocean influences us.

Available for elementary, middle, secondary schools and educators.

Student Courses
Educator Courses

Educator Tool Kits - a comprehensive, bilingual education program designed to educate students across Canada. Themes connect to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The program provides educators across the country with a Teacher tool kit and Student workbook for 7 lesson unit plan, including assessment rubrics, curriculum links for all Territories and Provinces, and dozens of explaining videos, all in one convenient place.

Teachers Leading Change - lessons, curriculum, resources

Grades 2/3, 7/8 & 10/11

What is the Ocean Plastic Program?

The Earth’s oceans, and the interconnected cycle of water and waterways, are vital to every living thing on Earth. And yet the health of these oceans, and by extension the well-being of all life on Earth, is at risk due largely to the impacts of human activity. Plastic is everywhere in our oceans and it’s going to take a deep, transformational change in humanity’s consciousness and activities regarding the oceans to ensure healthy, sustainable life on this planet.

We believe this is possible! But we need your help. Our youth need to be made aware of their own plastic use and how their actions will have a direct impact on the environment around them. Through these resources we hope youth will become leaders of change - and this all starts in your classroom.

Available for elementary, middle, secondary schools and educators in English and French

Teacher Tool Kits
Curriculum Links By Province
Teacher Unit Plan
Student Workbooks

Students learn about the techniques engineers have developed for changing ocean water into drinking water, including thermal and membrane desalination. They begin by reviewing the components of the natural water cycle. They see how filters, evaporation and/or condensation can be components of engineering desalination processes. They learn how processes can be viewed as systems, with unique objects, inputs, components and outputs, and sketch their own system diagrams to describe their own desalination plant designs.

Ocean Watch reports provide snapshots of coastal ocean health

Keeping our coasts and oceans healthy starts with understanding what is happening. The Coastal Ocean Research Institute (CORI) was established to do just that. Ocean Watch delves into what’s happening in our coastal ecosystems through a series of articles organized into seven themes: species and habitats, clean water, sense of place and wellbeing, coastal development and livelihoods, stewardship and governance, oceanography and climate change, and seafood. Our aim is to produce independent, credible, and engaging information so that you are inspired to make better decisions for nature and all the people who live along the coast in British Columbia.

Howe Sound is a remarkable blend of wilderness and accessibility. It sits directly adjacent to the growing metropolis of Vancouver, yet also contains fantastic wild places and natural recreational opportunities. With the population and development growing quickly, many are wondering how it can maintain its ecological values and way of life. This report provides information to help guide decisions as the area grows and changes. Working with scientists and other collaborators, we have produced a series of articles on key elements of Howe Sound.

This lesson will allow students to explore an important role of environmental engineers: cleaning the environment. Students will learn details about the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which was one of the most publicized and studied environmental tragedies in history. In the accompanying activity, they will try many "engineered" strategies to clean up their own manufactured oil spill and learn the difficulties of dealing with oil released into our waters.

This hands-on experiment will provide students with an understanding of the issues that surround environmental cleanup. Students will create their own oil spill, try different methods for cleaning it up, and then discuss the merits of each method in terms of effectiveness (cleanliness) and cost. They will be asked to put themselves in the place of both an environmental engineer and an oil company owner who are responsible for the clean-up.

Students learn about oil spills and their environmental and economic effects. They experience the steps of the engineering design process as they brainstorm potential methods for oil spill clean-up, and then design, build, and re-design oil booms to prevent the spread of oil spills. During a reflective session after cleaning up their oil booms, students come up with ideas on how to reduce oil consumption to prevent future oil spills.

In this activity, students learn about ocean currents and the difference between salt and fresh water. They use colored ice cubes to see how cold and warm water mix and how this mixing causes currents. Also, students learn how surface currents occur due to wind streams. Lastly, they learn how fresh water floats on top of salt water, the difference between water in the ocean and fresh water throughout the planet, and how engineers are involved in the design of ocean water systems for human use.