Welcome to Change is Simple’s Online Learning Platform!
Overview: Today, we are going to take a deeper dive into a topic we discussed last week, overfishing! In today’s lesson, we will closely examine a local, threatened fish species of your choosing. After becoming marine biologists and researching some local fish, we will become artists and draw/paint the subject of your research!
Grade Level: 3-5
Theme: Natural resource, sustainability, tragedy of the commons
Supervision needed? No
Essential Questions:
Materials Needed:
Standards:
Ecological Health 13.2 Describe how business, industry, and individuals can work cooperatively to solve ecological health problems, such as conserving natural resources and decreasing pollution
Ecological Health 13.4 Identify individual and community responsibility in ecological health.
PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO SO WE CAN GET STARTED!
Now it’s Time for YOU to become A Marine Biologist!
Time to take a deep Dive and Find out all About a Local, Threatened Fish Species.
You are going to build a species profile of the fish that you choose! In order for you to to build this species profile, you will have to research and compile information about your fish. Time to start digging!
Step 1-Pick your Fish
Start by surfing the web and choose a threatened/overfished fish species that is local to you! Since I’m in Massachusetts, I picked a fish off the coast of New England. If your joining us from somewhere else, choose one in the waters near where you live!
Here is a good resource to get started!
Step 2-Build your Species PRofile!
Now that you have chosen your fish, its time to start learning all about it. For this activity, you will need a piece of paper and something to write with to record all your data. Here are all the components you will need to build your species profile. You will have to research these questions and write the answers down on your sheet.
Write the name of your fish on the top of paper and underline it
What type of ocean habitat does your fish live in? (coastal, estuary, deep sea, etc)
How big does your fish species grow? (weight & length)
What does your fish species feed on?
Choose 5 adjectives (describing words) to describe your fish
Want to dig deeper? Here are some more challenging questions to add to your profile!
What type of commercial fishing is impacting your fish? (long lining, seine net, bottom trawler, etc)
How much has your fish’s stocks declined? (%)
What is the market price of your fish? ($)
It is Now Time for you to become an Artist!
Now that your species profile is built, it is now your job to draw and color your fish!
Materials
Paper, canvas or drawing pad
Colored pencils, markers, crayons or paint
Step 1- Sketch the outline of your fish
This will be your fish step. Look at your fish, what is it’s body type like? Is it shaped like a football? a torpedo? Is it flat? This is a good question to ask yourself while starting your sketch.
Step 2- Add Details
Once you have the body shape outlined, the next step will be to add in the finer details. These include fins, eyes, gills and patterns on your fish’s body. In my drawing, the Tuna has big eyes in order to hunt effectively and streamlined fins that help it accelerate through the water like a torpedo!
Step 3-Choose your colors!
Once we have the sketch complete, it will be time to bring it to life with some color. Using whichever coloring medium you would like, start compiling all the different colors you will need. I like to use a ton of colors and even create new ones by blending them together!
Step 4-Start Shading!
Now it is time to give your drawing a splash of color! Start by shading in the darker areas of your fish, this will give it a nice shadow affect. Next, add some base color to fish, but keep it light so you can add more colors on top! This will give your fish a really unique look and bring it to life!
Step 5-Lets get Funky! start blending those colors!
To really make your work of art pop, you can start blending different colors to give it layers and to even create some cool new colors! For my tuna, I started with a base of yellow, then added two different hues of blue to give my fish a unique green color that mimics the bluefin’s camouflage!
Step 6- KEep on Coloring till its done!
Keep adding color layers, blending colors and shading to make your piece of art complete! Here is my finished Bluefin Tuna!
