Rainforest
A forest is part of the watershed.
Trees, soils and rainfall connect life on land with coastal water. Observe habitat carefully, and distinguish what you see from what you infer.
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For students · Grade 8
Pay attention. Ask questions. Make a difference.
Your river, shoreline, school garden or neighborhood can be a place to start learning about the Earth.
Explore a connected world.
Ocean
Coral is an animal.
Reef-building corals live with tiny algae that help provide food. Heat and other stress can disrupt that relationship and cause bleaching.
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Wildlife
Give dolphins room to live.
Tour boats can change the behavior of Bocas del Toro's resident dolphins. Research helps us ask how tourism could reduce disturbance.
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Pollution
Small choices can affect shared water.
Litter and runoff can travel beyond where they begin. Investigate a local problem before deciding what would help.
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Research
Science starts with a question.
Scientists use repeatable methods, compare observations and explain uncertainty. You can practice those same skills.
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Community
People can speak for the environment.
A public hearing brings evidence and different needs into a shared decision. Learn how to compare proposals fairly.
Explore this topic →Meet the scientists
How do we know?
Researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute study Panama's forests and coastal ecosystems. Their work includes amphibian conservation and the effects of boat traffic on dolphins.
Test yourself
Think it through.
Choose an answer, read the explanation, and try again whenever you like.
What does coral bleaching mean?
What is a watershed?
What makes an environmental claim stronger?
What should you do before recycling foam?
How should you observe frogs?
What can a reef counter model tell us?
Investigate & act
Start with one good question.
Choose an investigation with your teacher. Each has steps, a place to record your thinking and links to the evidence.
Open student activities →Words to know
A little language for a big world.
- Watershed
- The area of land that drains to a common receiving water.
- Runoff
- Water that flows over land and can carry sediment, nutrients and other material.
- Sediment
- Particles such as soil and sand carried or deposited by water.
- Coral bleaching
- Loss of much of a coral's symbiotic algae, causing it to become pale. A bleached coral may still be alive.
- Biodiversity
- The variety of living things, including variation within species and among ecosystems.
- Observation
- Something you record using your senses or a measuring tool.
- Inference
- An interpretation you make from observations and other evidence.
- Model
- A simplified representation used to explore a system. Every model has limits.
- Claim, evidence, reasoning
- A conclusion, the information supporting it, and an explanation of how they connect.