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Navigate the aquatic world of Shedd for an exciting and educational adventure. Create a memorable experience and expand your curriculum with lab programs on animal behavior, habitats, adaptations, ecosystems, anatomy and water chemistry. Take your students’ learning to the next level.
How will you build a better field trip?
Educator Field Trip Guide
This guide will help you plan a field trip that’s not just educational, but enjoyable and memorable as well. Use our educator guide to plan a field trip that encourages your students to explore and learn about the aquatic world.
Animals in Action
Through observation and action, students compare and contrast the diverse ways in which animals move, discovering connections between animals’ actions and their habitats. Students interact with hermit crabs, make predictions about their movement and role-play other specific animal movements.
Key concepts: adaptations, body parts, form and function
Skills: comparing and contrasting, observation, predictions, measuring, modeling, motor skills
Animals in Action Learning Lab Guide
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Camouflaging Critters
Bodies that look like leaves, logs, ice floes and seafloors: Camouflage comes in many shapes and colors. With one of the aquarium animals as a model, students see firsthand the role camouflage plays between animals and their habitats. The scientific process comes to life as students observe, predict and report results.
Key concepts: camouflage, adaptations, habitats, predator/prey relationships, behavior
Skills: categorization, predictions, modeling, grouping, observation
Camouflaging Critters Learning Lab Guide
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Happenin’ Habitats
Discover what makes a home a habitat, both in nature and at Shedd. Meet live animals, examine their homes and compare and contrast habitats in ecosystems around the world. Through investigations and problem-solving, students learn how animals use and even share these special places.
Key concepts: habitats, adaptations, body parts, relationships
Skills: reasoning, collaboration, observation, inquiry
Happenin' Habitats Learning Lab Guide
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Icy Adaptations
Take a closer look at Shedd’s Abbott Oceanarium animals. Students investigate and explore some of the adaptations that enable beluga whales, sea otters and penguins to survive in their icy habitats.
Key concepts: adaptations, animal behavior, insulation, anatomy
Skills: identification, comparing and contrasting, data organization, group work, experimentation, investigation
Icy Adaptations Learning Lab Guide
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Grades 3-5 Learning Labs
Fish Files
Students investigate the characteristics of different fishes and use a magnifying lens for an even closer look at one of them. Using observation and data collection, students conduct experiments to discover why fishes look the way they do and how they are adapted to their surroundings.
Key concepts: adaptations, body parts, movement, habitats, structure and function
Skills: data collection, observation, group work, presentation, experimentation
Fish Files Learning Lab Guide
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Whale Adventure
What does it take for a whale to survive? Students step into the shoes of a scientist and, by using tools and experimentation, uncover the many adaptations whales have to survive in diverse and sometimes surprising places.
Key concepts: adaptations, food web
Skills: data collection, presentation, identification, experimentation, inquiry, graph interpretation
Whale Adventure Learning Lab Guide
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Reef Relationships
Examine life in a coral reef ecosystem to discover a complex food web. Students delve into predator/prey interactions to understand the specialized feeding adaptations and behaviors animals need to make a living on the reef.
Key concepts: adaptations, predator/prey relationships, ecosystems, food webs
Skills: comparing and contrasting, collaboration, observation, experimentation
Reef Relationships Learning Lab Guide
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Amazon Survival
Trek into the Amazon flooded forest to discover how the seasonal cycles of high and low water shape life along the river. Students explore what adaptations enable animals—and people—to take advantage of this dynamic environment.
Key concepts: experimentation, adaptations, form and function, relationships
Skills: observation, team work, collaboration, inquiry, problem solving
Amazon Survival Learning Lab Guide
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Grades 6-8 Learning Labs
Exploring Anatomy: Squid Dissection
Examine the morphology of a squid during a student-driven, hands-on dissection. Students ask questions and work together to answer them by identifying parts of a squid and exploring the many adaptations that help this invertebrate be the predator and not the prey in its habitat.
Key concepts: adaptations, predator/prey relationships, physiology, anatomy, taxonomy
Skills: scientific investigation and method, collaboration and communication, group work, presentation, inquiry
Squid Dissection Learning Lab Guide
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Sea Otter Survival
Students take on the roles of Shedd Aquarium staff members to design a sea otter habitat. In this problem-based learning lab, students use hands-on investigation to understand otter diet, behavior and habitat. Using their results, they’ll recommend an exhibit design to their classmates.
Key concepts: ecology, population genetics, biological needs, behaviors, habitats
Skills: scientific investigation and method, collaboration and communication, data collection and analysis, presentation, inquiry
Sea Otter Survival Learning Lab Guide
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Great Lakes: Puzzling Populations
Behind the scenes at Shedd, students apply problem based learning to discover why fish populations are declining in the Great Lakes. Students explore exhibit habitats and measure the health of an aquatic system by performing water-quality tests. They are then challenged to use their results to solve the puzzle of the population decline.
Key concepts: population dynamics, ecosystems, ecological impact, life history, invasive species, human impact
Skills: scientific method and investigation, collaboration and communication, data collection and analysis, experimentation, prediction
Great Lakes: Puzzling Populations Learning Lab
Register for this program.
Lakeshore Biology
On the shoreline of Lake Michigan, students conduct water-quality tests, collect plankton samples and connect the effects of local weather, plants, animals and human residents to the health of our lake. This seasonal program is offered in September, October, April, May and June. Portions of the class will take place outside, weather permitting.
Key concepts: ecology, predator and prey relationships, ecosystems, food web
Skills: scientific investigation and method, data collection and analysis, collaboration and communication, observation, research techniques
Lakeshore Biology Learning Lab Guide
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Grades 9–12 Learning Labs
Exploring Pathology: Fish Dissection
Through a hands-on dissection, students play the role of Shedd’s animal health team in this problem-based learning lab. Students use various pathology procedures to diagnose the health of their specimen. Learn how a necropsy can be a vital tool in caring for an animal collection.
Key concepts: adaptations, physiology, anatomy, pathology, forensics, animal health
Skills: scientific investigation and method, collaboration and communication, group work, inquiry, qualitative and quantative data collection
Exploring Pathology: Fish Dissection Learning Lab Guide
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Mission: Marine Habitat
Students work in teams charged with designating a marine protected area. Each group must consider the individual needs of multiple marine species. Given scientific tools, students use critical thinking to gather and present data in support of their decisions.
Key concepts: predator/prey relationships, population dynamics, biological needs, ecosystems, human impact, conservation
Skills: problem-solving, data synthesis and analysis, presentation, collaboration and communication, inquiry
Mission Marine Habitat Learning Lab Guide
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Great Lakes: Testing the Waters
Students go behind the scenes at Shedd and apply problem-based learning to explore an imbalance in a Great Lakes ecosystem. Students explore exhibit habitats and perform water-quality tests. They are then challenged to interpret their results to evaluate the health of the Great Lakes and some of its fish populations.
Key concepts: invasive species, ecology, ecosystems, human impact, population dynamics
Skills: scientific investigation and method, collaboration and communication, data collection and analysis, presentation, inquiry
Great Lakes: Testing the Waters Learning Lab Guide
Register for this program.
Lakeshore Biology
On the shore of Lake Michigan, students conduct water-quality tests, collect plankton samples and connect the effects of local weather, plants, animals and human residents to the health of our lake. Seasonal program offered in September, October, April, May and June only. Portions of the class will take place outside, weather permitting.
Lakeshore Biology Learning Lab Guide
Register for this program.
Science Standards
Check the Illinois standards for our curricula and learning labs:
Common Core English Standards Aligned to Shedd Learning Labs
Common Core Math Standards Aligned to Shedd Learning Labs
Common Core English and Math Standards Aligned to Shedd Outreach Programs
Illinois State Learning Standards Aligned to Shedd Learning Labs
Shedd Bus Fund Program
The bus fund program at Shedd Aquarium, sponsored in part by Target®, offers field trip assistance to economically disadvantaged schools in the Chicago Public Schools system. Participation is limited to schools in which at least 51 percent of the student population qualifies for free or reduced-price lunches through the National School Lunch Program.
Shedd’s bus fund provides up to $150 a bus for up to two buses for round-trip transportation to Shedd. (Schools must make transportation arrangements through the bus provider of their choice and pay any charges over the maximum $300 allotted. Funding is not guaranteed until confirmation is received.) Funding is available on a first-come, first-served basis.
This program is closed for the 2012-2013 schoolyear. Pease check back for enrollment dates for the 2013-2014 schoolyear.
Family programs
Encourage parent/child learning with family programs that connect to science and nature.
Educator resources
Add interactive learning to your curriculum with Shedd Educational Adventures and other classroom resources.
Illinois Learning Standards
Our K-12 programs ignite student wonder and offer problem-based learning while fulfilling Illinois Learning Standards for Science.
