This video provides students with a variety of information about the estuary of Tillamook Bay, located on the coast of Oregon.
Students will learn the bay's geographic location, its importance as a tourist location, some of the wildlife that lives there, and some of the ways the bay contributes to the local economy.
Teaching Tips
Positives
The video does an excellent job of engaging young learners with various media, including an animated belted kingfisher to narrate the video.
This video uses both maps and examples to help students conceptualize the size and location of this bay.
Additional Prerequisites
The video briefly defines estuary, but students may benefit from knowing this term prior to watching.
Students may be able to better connect to the video if they are shown Tillamook Bay on a map prior to watching.
English language learners or younger students may need some terms defined prior to watching the video including high tide, low tide, submerged, vegetation, and fleet.
Differentiation
Students in social studies classes can research the benefits of estuaries for coastal communities all around the world after watching this video.
Language arts students can create a travel brochure for Tillamook Bay or a bay in their area that highlights the value of the natural ecosystem and wildlife to its neighboring communities.
Geography classes can have students label a map of the rivers that feed this estuary and other estuaries near them and the discuss how global warming might affect these rivers.
After watching this video, science classes can talk about why tide changes happen in a bay throughout the day and how that affects the types of organisms that can live there. This can connect to environmental changes occurring due to global warming, sea level rise, and climate change.
Science classes learning about animals and their habitats can discuss the animals living in estuaries and the evolutionary adaptations that animals have that help them live in specific environments. Ask students why climate change may be a risk for these animals that rely on specific environmental conditions.
Students who have difficulties with auditory processing and/or English language learners may benefit from a slower playback speed and/or from using the closed-captioning function on the video.
If your English Language Learners' primary language is Spanish, there is a Spanish version of this video that can be found in the video description and in our resource database.
Scientist Notes
This resource is a YouTube video that discusses the Oregon Coast, specifically Tillamook Bay. There is a discussion about what an estuary is and where the water in an estuary comes from, as well as a brief discussion about high and low tides, the types of animals found in an estuary. This video would be a great addition to a classroom discussion on watersheds, estuaries, rivers, the water cycle, and the importance of clean water.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS2: Earth's Systems
2-ESS2-2 Develop a model to represent the shapes and kinds of land and bodies of water in an area.
4-ESS2-2 Analyze and interpret data from maps to describe patterns of Earth’s features.
LS4: Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity
3-LS4-3 Construct an argument with evidence that in a particular habitat some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Geography
D2.Geo.2.K-2 Use maps, graphs, photographs, and other representations to describe places and the relationships and interactions that shape them.
D2.Geo.9.K-2 Describe the connections between the physical environment of a place and the economic activities found there.
D2.Geo.2.3-5 Use maps, satellite images, photographs, and other representations to explain relationships between the locations of places and regions and their environmental characteristics.
Dimension 2: History
D2.His.1.K-2 Create a chronological sequence of multiple events.
