Take a Bite out of Learning During Shark Week With FREEBIE

Every year, Shark Week brings awareness to our sharks and their importance to our ecosystem. Discovery Channel presents amazing stories about these mysterious creatures. In this post, I'm sharing a fun way students can learn about sharks through cartoons. Take a Bite Out of Learning During Shark Week with this FREEBIE.

Sharks face extinction in almost every part of the world. Have you heard of Shark Fin Soup? Believe it or not, the main threat to sharks is overfishing due to the demand of shark fins. Shark fins are the most expensive seafood in the world. And, the sad part is that there is no demand for the rest of the shark meat. There are other threats, too.

Some of these include:

1. Bypass killing when other seafood is targeted,

2. Recreational fishing,

3. Use in cosmetics or health supplements, and

4. Destruction of habitat

Cartoonist Jim Toomey has created the cartoon Sherman's Lagoon about Sherman the Shark in order to bring awareness to sharks and for his love of the ocean. Toomey uses cartoons to get messages and issues across concerning the destruction of the ocean and its creatures.

Using cartoons, videos and other forms of media are excellent ways to grab a student's attention and curiosity in introducing a project based unit or guided inquiry. If you have time, watch Jim Toomey's Ted Talk. This short animated film below helps educate students about shark protection.

For your free product, I created a cute editable PowerPoint cartoon for your students as they research the different threats to sharks. Students will type their information in the speech bubbles. For more research resources about our oceans and sharks, CLICK HERE.

For your Fin-tastic FREE editable PowerPoint cartoon, click on the image BELOW.

To share the results of research threats to sharks, Students can create a cartoon story with this editable PowerPoint.

To learn even more about saving our oceans and ocean animals, visit my store for this complete Project Based Learning unit.

3 comments

Paula's Primary ClassroomJune 26, 2016 at 9:31 AM
I love the idea of using cartoons to teach kids, and really appreciate the link to the TedTalk. Thank you for sharing!
LoriJune 30, 2016 at 11:00 AM
So many great ideas! I LOVE the editable powerpoint. Thank you for sharing!!
luckeyfrogJuly 1, 2016 at 12:58 PM
Oh, I've never seen that cartoon before! What a great way to engage kids in a real problem. Thanks so much for joining in our shark week hop!

Jenny