Ocean Currents Lesson Plan: Earth’s Systems

Grade Levels: 3-5, 6-8

*Click to open and customize your own copy of the Ocean Currents Lesson Plan.

This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Ocean Currents, and supports the standard of developing a model to describe ways the geosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere interact. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Ask students:

  • If you were to drop a bottle into the ocean, where do you think it would go? Why do you think so?

Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE

  • Read the description on the Ocean Currents.
  • Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding. 
  • Have students read one of the Related Reading articles. Partner them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS 

Students take the Ocean Currents Challenge and Quiz, applying essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND

Students express what they learned about ocean currents while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.

  • Make-a-Movie: Produce a tutorial that explains how surface currents affect a region’s climate.
  • Make-a-Map: Create a concept map identifying the process that causes deep underwater currents, also known as the global conveyor belt.
  • Creative Coding: Code a learning game challenging players to sort ocean current vocabulary as relating to surface currents or deep ocean currents.

More to Explore 

Related BrainPOP Topics: Deepen understanding of ocean currents and related Earth systems with these topics: Oceans, Waves, and Tides.

Teacher Support Resources:

Related:

    Filed as:  3-5, 6-8, BrainPOP, Earth System, Lesson Plan, Ocean Currents, Science, Teacher Resources