Welcome to the Marine Biology Nature Journal Page!
One project I highly recommend that we all do for Project Based Marine Biology class, is to keep a nature journal about marine plants, animals and oceanography! You can either make a nature journal from scratch, including making your own paper (made from plants ; ) out of recycled paper, or begin with the most basic of materials such as a blank notebook. You can add some decorations to the cover and make it look very "nature-like". Below you can find several websites and video tutorials about making a nature journal and how to use it.
After you make your journal, begin by either taking a walk by a local shore (if you have regular access to the sea or are going on vacation to the shore) or trying any of the journal activities I will be adding below and on the CurrClick Live Weekly Outline. You don't have to live by the seashore to journal about marine life. You can use marine life hard copy field guides as well as online field guides to study and sketch marine plants of interest.
Below are merely suggestions and guidelines for you on how you can keep your journal, but you get to decide how to design and record information that's interesting to you about marine life. We'd love to have students present their nature journals in my CurrClick Live classes!
Natureglo
Journal Resources
Smithsonian Nature Journal pdf Lesson (16 pages) - Superb graphics and a nice nature journal template you may want to use in your own journal
smithsoniannaturejournal.pdf | |
File Size: | 3470 kb |
File Type: |
Setting up journal pages and suggested journaling to do while at the shore
seashorejournal.pdf | |
File Size: | 683 kb |
File Type: |
Sea Searcher's Journaling Activities
Journal guidelines per entry (not at the shore) - You can use the directions below as a template per journal entry. If you have additional ideas to add, feel free to implement your ideas in the journal. The sky is the limit on how creative you can be with your journal.
Directions:
Go with your creative and artistic flow for these suggested journaling activities. Make some marine life doodles about your page. Color it and make pages as visually interesting to you as you can.
Go with your creative and artistic flow for these suggested journaling activities. Make some marine life doodles about your page. Color it and make pages as visually interesting to you as you can.
- Read or skim through the given article or articles from Wikipedia or other given web pages. Check out the different families highlighted usually under the word Classification or taxonomy. You can look at all of these groups and get some sketches of different families of the organism studied.
- Choose one or more photographs of interest and sketch it in your Marine Biology nature journal.
- Color your image realistically (or unrealistically if you choose)
- Add interesting facts that you read. Consider using fancy and fun lettering and colors to highlight and make the facts visually exciting.
- Share your journal page with family, friends, and or in the CurrClick Live class!
Journaling about Echinoderms
Read or skim through the following website resources about Echinoderms.
Read or skim through the following website resources about Echinoderms.
- Wikipedia Article about Echinoderms
- Splendors of the Sea and Wonders of the Sky Website - Echinoderms
- Invertebrate Anatomy: look over the anatomy of various echinoderms.
- Look over the starfish anatomy below. Sketch it in your journal and label the parts.
- Follow the guidelines above for doing a journal page about Echinoderms.
Starfish Anatomy
1 - Pyloric stomach
2 - Intestine
3 - Rectal gland
4 - Stone canal
5 - Madreporite
6 - Pyloric duct
7 - Pyloric cecum
8 - Cardiac stomach
9 - Gonad
10 - Ambulacral plates
11 - Ampullae
2 - Intestine
3 - Rectal gland
4 - Stone canal
5 - Madreporite
6 - Pyloric duct
7 - Pyloric cecum
8 - Cardiac stomach
9 - Gonad
10 - Ambulacral plates
11 - Ampullae