Sea Vegetables: The Science of Seaweeds
The Science of Seaweeds explores sea vegetable aquaculture. Youth will learn parts of seaweeds and how they differ in structure and function from land plants, what nutrients they need to survive, their importance in the marine food web, and how they are used by humans! NGSS, ELA Literacy and Ocean Literacy Standards alignments provided.
Activity 1: Maine Seaweed Identification
Learning Targets:
- Categorize a seaweed as red, brown, or green.
- Identify the different parts of a seaweed.
- Use a biological key to identify a seaweed.
Activity 2: Go Fish for Seaweed
Learning Targets:
- Recognize the difference between seaweeds and land plants.
- Identify the parts of a seaweed (blade, stipe, holdfast, and sometimes float).
- Identify the common species of seaweed in Maine.
Activity 3: Got Seaweed?
Learning Targets:
- Understand that seaweeds are edible plant-like organisms that people consume in processed food products.
- Recognize and/or identify seaweed-based ingredients when reading product ingredient lists.
- Observe how seaweed acts as a binding/thickening agent in food.
Activity 4: Nitrogen Cycle Game
Learning Targets:
- Understand that nitrogen cycles indefinitely through the Earth system.
- Name the places that nitrogen is found on Earth.
- Describe how the cycle travels between living things and the physical environment.
- Understand the role of seaweed in the marine cycle of nitrogen.
Activity 5: Kelp Forest Towers
Learning Targets:
- Understand the role of kelp, urchins, and wolffish in the New England ecosystem.
- Understand how a population of one organism can affect the population of another in the same food web.
- Model human impacts on a fragile food web.
Activity 6: Sea Vegetable Challenge
Learning Targets:
- Understand the value of aquaculture in Maine.
- Apply their creativity and imagination to create biological and business models.
- Develop an engineering solution prototype that will meet a societal demand for food.
- Design an engineering solution given constraints on cost and materials.
Activity 7: Rockweed Harvesting Game
Learning Targets:
- Explore the concept of sustainability using a model of Maine’s rocky shore.
- Investigate and explore a way to maintain a sustainable rockweed industry.
Activity 8: Seaweed Celebrity
Learning Targets:
- Explore various careers that involve a knowledge or love of seaweed.
- Understand that there are many practical applications of this knowledge in the workforce.
- Summarize the information learned over the course of the Seaweed Aquaculture Toolkit.
Are you interested in learning more about what the University of Maine and UMaine system campuses offer?
The University of Maine offers over 100 academic majors! To learn more either:
- Visit UMaine’s Find a Major.
- Explore our other campuses here.
If you need help connecting to UMaine or one of the other UMaine System campuses, contact us at 4Hscience@maine.edu or call 207.581.3877 and ask for Meg, Greg, or Sarah!
This activity is supported by National Science Foundation award #EPS-0904155 to Maine EPSCoR at the University of Maine.