This podcast introduces listeners to stewards of The Connecticut Research Reserve, an estuary in Southeastern Connecticut that includes unique habitat types not found in other national estuarine research reserves in the Northeast.
Students will learn from experts with the Office For Coastal Management who help protect the estuary and work to preserve it to benefit the wildlife and the blue economy of the area.
This brief podcast easily lends itself to a lesson plan for a substitute teacher since students can listen to it within one class period.
Students will hear from two individuals with green careers who discuss the benefits of the "living laboratories" of estuaries and reserves.
Additional Prerequisites
Students will need internet access and headphones if the teacher wishes for them to listen individually.
There is a transcript included, so students will be able to listen and read along.
Teachers and students can share the information via social media or access the podcast on various apps.
Students should be familiar with the term estuary.
Differentiation
Social studies teachers can have students listen to the podcast and use hard-copy maps to study the locations mentioned in the presentation.
English or economics teachers can have students work in small groups to research the phrase "blue economy,\" and then create academic paragraphs with examples of blue economies worldwide.
Students can use the transcript to highlight details to include in a summary or vocabulary they are unfamiliar with.
This podcast is just one of various topics, videos, articles, and other related links at the top of the webpage, so teachers can access enough information to create an ocean-themed unit.