9-12

I chose to watch energy flow in the coral reef ecosystem. The coral reef, found in tropical waters houses itself near the surface of the water because it needs sunlight for photosynthesis to survive. The reef is surrounded by plants, algae, and animals which help the food chain repeat again and again.

The reef could not exist without coral which is made up of many organisms. The fish eat the polyps in the coral reef by extracting them with their powerful jaws and teeth. Parrot fish create a lot of the sand at the bottom of the reef and sea cucumbers eat the sand and collect debris and algae from it keeping the ocean bottom clean.

These podcast were helpful because they were relevant to the grade levels that I want to teach. They gave so much information and they were videos so they showed examples. The videos are a good alternative to reading at a book and kids love to watch videos. They learn things from videos and do not even realize it.

The videos were also a good teaching tool for me to apply in my classroom because I am going to be a science teacher, and they all applied to science. There were so many interesting videos from NASA and NOVA. They were all very colorful and sparked my imagination, so the videos would be a great teaching tool I would consider using in my classroom.