For SDG 14, we turn attention to our oceans, seas and marine resources and look at how to conserve and use these sustainably by preventing marine pollution of all kinds and conserving at least 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas.
YOU CAN
- Start by showing children images of the sea and oceans because not all children will have had the experience of being at the coast.
- Use an atlas or Google Earth to look at how much of our planet is covered by water.
- Introduce the difference between sea water and fresh water.
- Introduce new words and terminology, such as ‘coastal’, ‘marine’, ‘sea’, ‘ocean’ and the different names of the seas.
- Discuss why marine areas are so important even though we do not live in them, such as that as much as 80 per cent of life on Earth is found beneath the ocean’s surface and that more than half the oxygen we breathe is produced by the ocean.
Extension activities
- Watch short film The Ocean and Us on the consequences of climate change on the oceans: https://bit.ly/3zYsctJ.
- Ensure you have a range of factual books, such as the RSPB First Book of the Sea Shore by Derek Niemann.
- In creative sessions, use music to dance and move like different fish, or crabs or seaweeds.
- Listen to the catchy song ‘Living Under the Sea’, performed by Kidzone: https://bit.ly/3ffb9dx. Can you learn the song and make up a dance routine to go with it – perhaps children could scuttle sideways? Film your performance and share with families and friends.
Learning links
EYFS (DfE, 2021) Expressive Arts and Design – Sing a range of well-known nursery rhymes and songs; perform songs, rhymes, poems, and stories with others, and – when appropriate – try to move in time with music.
- Extension activities
- Discover more about underwater ecosystems by working with a small group of children to make one out of recycled materials. Ask families if they have any sand, shells or pebbles that they could donate.
- Research sea life that will be part of the scene and make a class book that identifies them.
- Become familiar with naming coastal sea words; for example, different types of seaweed.
Learning links
EYFS (DfE, 2021) Expressive Arts and Design –Safely use and explore a variety of materials, tools, and techniques, experimenting with colour, design, texture, form and function.
Extension activities
- Revisit your underwater scene when the children are not present and add plastics and rubbish to demonstrate pollution. Look at the sea scene with the children and talk about what has happened. Will sea creatures be unhappy that their home has rubbish in it?
- Watch this short video on marine pollution and how to prevent it: https://bit.ly/3r5E5da. Pause the film at relevant points to explain points further to children or answer questions.
- Revisit the word ‘rights’ – what does that mean? Who speaks for the crab or the whale?
- Highlight some provocative images of sea life dying because of pollution and discuss with the children how the sea life in question could be thinking.
Learning links
EYFS (DfE, 2021) Understanding the World – Understand some important processes and changes in the natural world around them.
Extension activities
- Check out What a Waste: Rubbish, recycling and protecting our planet by Jess French, which educates budding ecologists about how our actions affect planet Earth and the big impact we can make by the little things we do.
- Discuss issues raised in the book, such as that every single plastic toothbrush ever made still exists. Or that there is a floating mass of rubbish larger than the USA drifting around the Pacific Ocean. What do the children think about this?
Learning Links
EYFS (DfE, 2021) – Through conversation, storytelling and role play, where children share their ideas with support and modelling from their teacher, and sensitive questioning that invites them to elaborate, children become comfortable using a rich range of vocabulary and language structures.
SDG 14 – https://bit.ly/3A6OXvJ.
Diane Boyd is a senior lecturer, early years, at Liverpool John Moores University, d.j.boyd@ljmu.ac.uk.