The Ocean’s Heart

The Tiny Creatures Essential to Life

Plunge far below the ocean’s surface where billions of restless animals called zooplankton (including jellyfish) dwell in the Twilight Zone. Some are tiny, some enormous, and most are exquisitely strange and beautiful. The setting sun cues their journey to surface waters for a midnight feast on trillions of tiny plants (and each other). It’s a daunting, perilous, nightly migration that transforms the dark ocean into a carnival of lights amidst a feeding frenzy in this eat before being eaten world—a journey that’s vital to all life on Earth.

Back matter includes a food web infographic, surprising details about plankton, and what you can do to help protect the ocean and its inhabitants.

Resources

• Click on Educator Guide to access slide deck and activities. STEM is included in reading/writing and extension activities.

• Organize a “Zooplankton Are Deep” Awareness Week, using activities from the Educator Guide.
• Click on Using Movement Read Aloud pdf to access and print. The pdf images have clickable links to videos of the sea creatures shown.
• YouTube video – movements (and more fun facts) for THE OCEAN’S HEART read aloud
• Animal ID chart coming soon!
• Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute: Animals of the Deep
• Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution – Twilight Zone