1. Factors affecting the Plants
Drying out
Body dries out
Inability to breed
Hanging on to rocks
Getting eaten
Overheating
Changing light
Changing salt content (salinity)

2. Plants
Try to start with a plant or animal that lives attach to rock: these are the easiest to find!
Pick a few to begin with and familiarise yourself with them
Learn some interesting stories that the students will enjoy –

3. Name the Plants
Gut weed

4. Spiral wrack

5. Chanel wrack

6. Egg wrack

7. Explorers Education Programme: www.explorers.ie
Bladder wrack
Explorers Education Programme:

8. Saw toothed wrack

9. Dulse

10. Name the Animals
Animals with Shells

11. Limpet

12. Limpet – foot sucks onto rock

13. Chiton

14. Edible Periwinkles

15. Smooth Periwinkle

16. Thick top shell

17. Barnacles

18. Crabs Clockwise from top left: Shore Crab Edible Crab Hermit Crab
Velvet Swimming Crab

19. Shore Crab

20. Porcelain Crab

21. Fish Fish Clockwise from top left: Butterfish Bearded Rocking
Rock Goby
Blenny
Middle:
Flatfish

22. Blenny

23. Other Clockwise from top left: Sea Anemone (closed) Sea Anemone (open)
Moon Jellyfish
Compass Jellyfish
Mermaids purse
Common Starfish
Lugworm deposit

24. Food Webs Who eats who on the shore? A basic food chain
Sun - tiny plants on the rocks called lichen – Limpet – Dogwhelk
Sun - tiny plants (phytoplankton) and animals in the water – mussel - starfish
What happens if the seawater is polluted?

25. Colours and shapes

26. Interesting Stories The Starfish and how it eats – hydraulic arms
The limpet - home scar left on a rock
The hermit crab – changing houses (shells) as it grows
Crab and how it moults it shell (skeleton)
The barnacle – how they mate
The dogwhelk - how they feed re: drilling
See the following teachers resources on the explorers website:
Explorers Species Information Book
Anecdotes about Seashore Animals

27. Planning a seashore safari
Safety first
When is low tide
Student : adult ratio
What type of shore are you going to
Have you been there before
Do the students all have protective footwear
Seashore Conservation
For more information see:
Explorers Planning a trip to the Seashore
Explorers Seashore Best Practice and Conservation Code

28. What to do there? Junior Classes 2nd-4th Senior Classes All classes
Types of colours, shapes and sounds on the shore
2nd-4th
Food chains, and tides and the water cycle
Senior Classes
Habitats and food webs
All classes
Plants, Animals and Fun

29. Discussion for on the Seashore Types of colour, shape and sound
The sound of the water, birds, traffic......
The colour of the sand, plants, shells. How many different colours can they find?
Shapes of seaweeds and shells, again how many can they find?
Can they tell where the water comes up to the shore? Where does the seashore stop?