Animals of Long Island Sound

Positives

• The resource provides a wealth of information about each animal.
• Students will learn about the many challenges facing this ecosystem, such as overfishing, warming waters due to climate change, coastal development destroying habitats, and pollution.

Additional Prerequisites

• These animals are all part of the Animals of Long Island Sound exhibit at The Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, CT. If you are local to the area, consider planning a field trip to see the exhibit in person. 
• If you are not local to Norwalk, the Maritime Aquarium offers scheduling of virtual programs streamed live.
• The text includes some advanced vocabulary. Depending on the reading level of your students, prepare to provide some instruction to introduce these terms.
• Students should understand sea-level rise, predators, and endangered animals.

Differentiation

• Students can select one animal to read about and share what they learn with a small group or the class.
• For younger students, consider reading the text together as a class and pausing periodically to explain unfamiliar terms.
• In middle school science classes, students can create food webs to connect these animals and others native to the Long Island Sound.
• Throughout the resource, students will read about animals that are threatened, endangered, vulnerable, or species of special concern. Students can compare these different categories and research ways humans protect these species.
• Teachers can make cross-curricular connections with social studies and civics classes by exploring the different regulations, acts, and laws that protect these animals, many of which are discussed in the conservation notes.
• Students can brainstorm how climate change impacts these animals or could in the future.
• Some sections have more text than others, so teachers can strategically assign passages based on student reading levels.