Every year on 8 June, World Ocean Day celebrates the unique beauty of our blue planet and rallies everyone to protect it. One creature that symbolises the ocean’s awe-inspiring ecosystems is the ray. There are many types of rays, such as manta rays, stingrays, and spotted eagle rays. With flat bodies and wing-like fins, rays can spark wonder in children, making them the perfect inspiration for exploring STEM concepts like shapes, movement, and forces. Read on for an age-appropriate STEM activity, plus extension ideas related to rays.
Don’t forget to share your Ocean Day explorations with us! Join Little Scientists’ Facebook group “Early STEM Educators Network” to exchange STEM ideas with educators all over Australia.
Activity
Equipment:
🌊 A scarf or fabric.
🌊 Anything in your setting that can be waved around, such as paper.
Instructions:
- Invite the children to close their eyes and imagine that they’re gliding through water like a ray.
- Prompt them to discuss what they imagine, for example: How do you move in water without legs? How is this different or similar to how you move on land? Can you move quickly? Do you keep your fingers close together or do you spread them? Can you float?
3. Have the children demonstrate what they imagine a ray moving through water looks like. You can ask them to compare how their ideas differ from their peers.
4. Provide scarves or fabric for the children to wave while continuing their water movements. This mimics the tail of some rays. How do the scarves or fabric move through the air?
5. Extend this activity by providing different types, lengths, and shapes of materials to replace the scarves. How do these changes affect the materials’ movements?
In this activity, children investigate the differences between their bodies and that of sea creatures. The focus is on movement. Discussing how the children move on land and in the water is important as it helps them make the connection between the habitats that creatures live in, how they hunt for food, and their bodies.
Ocean Day extension ideas
⛵ Invite the children to create their own rays out of foam, paper, or recycled materials. What shapes are rays? Do some materials float better in water? Place the DIY rays in a tub of water and gently blow to move them around.
🐠 Explore resistance and force by pushing and pulling lightweight toys or sponges in water. Prompt the children to think about the amount of force required to move these objects, for example: Was it harder to push underwater than on land? Why?
📙 Read “Commotion in the Ocean” by Giles Andreae & David Wojtowycz.
Dive into this colourful book full of STEM learning opportunities, from anatomy and habitats to food chains and colours. Some questions you can ask children include:
- Can the children walk like the crabs in the book? Why do crabs walk sideways?
- Can the children wave their hands like a jellyfish?
- How are dolphins able to swim fast?
- How do animals communicate with each other?
🐧 Explore other creatures that live near or in the water, including in the extreme cold. Talking about walruses, penguins, and polar bears might spark children’s curiosity about how animals have learned to live in the cold and what they themselves can do to deal with the cold on land. Do the children get goose bumps in winter? What do they wear in cold weather to keep warm?
🦈 Investigate which marine animals give birth to live babies and which lay eggs. Hint: it’s not just mammals that can give birth to live babies – some rays and sharks do too! Show the children pictures of these eggs. Ask the children to compare shark eggs to chicken eggs: Are they bigger? A different shape? A different colour?
Develop your STEM skills with pedagogy-based STEM PD:
- Browse our in-person STEM workshops.
- Browse our online STEM workshops.
- Browse our online STEM Hours.
- Book an in-service workshop for your team.
- Book a STEM Family Workshop for your families.
