Lesson overview

Different species have adapted to life on the coral reef in amazing and diverse ways. From sleeping in mucus bubbles, to flexible snakelike skeletons, life on the reef has had to find ingenious methods to find food and stay alive. The reef is also host to numerous examples of symbiosis and finding food and safety in the strangest of places, whether that be in a shark’s mouth or ‘vacuuming’ the sandy seabed. In this lesson, students are challenged to create the ultimate reef organism.

Lesson outcomes

• Identify specific adaptions used by coral reef species
• Explain the need for adaption for survival
  
• List a range of adaption strategies used on the reef
• Create the 'ultimate coral animal' using prior knowledge
• Consolidate understanding of adaption on the reef

Lesson steps

1. Why have animals adapted to survive on the reef? (10 mins)
   Students identify how different species have adapted to life on the coral reef and understand how survival involves competing for resources.
   
2. How have different species adapted to life on the reef? (15 mins)
   Students learn from several different animals about the strategies they use to survive.
   
3. What would make the ultimate coral animal? (20 mins)
   Students create the ultimate coral animal. Using their prior knowledge they draw and label the adaptations their creature would have.
   
4. How have animals adapted to live on the coral reef? (15 mins)
   Students reflect on three of the animals they have discussed today and comment on the adaptations that make them effective reef dwellers.

England

Biology Key Stage 3

• Genetics and evolution (Inheritance, chromosomes, DNA and genes)
• Changes in the environment may leave individuals within a species, and some entire species, less well adapted to compete successfully and reproduce, which in turn may lead to extinction

USA

NGSS Grades 5-8 Science

• Life Sciences
  MS-LS3-1. Develop and use a model to describe why structural changes to genes (mutations) located on chromosomes may affect proteins and may result in harmful, beneficial, or neutral effects to the structure and function of the organism.
  MS-LS4-2. Apply scientific ideas to construct an explanation for the anatomical similarities and differences among modern organisms and between modern and fossil organisms to infer evolutionary relationships.
  MS-LS4-4. Construct an explanation based on evidence that describes how genetic variations of traits in a population increase some individuals’ probability of surviving and reproducing in a specific environment.
  MS-LS4-6. Use mathematical representations to support explanations of how natural selection may lead to increases and decreases of specific traits in populations over time.