The PDF’s below are designed to accompany school field trips to the park, however all the activities require minimal materials and can easily be modified for use in the home and with various ages. There are also recommended books, websites, and videos listed at the end of each lesson’s directions.
Access Lesson Plans
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Great Brooklyn Bridge (Grades 2-5)
LESSON 1 (PRE-TRIP): Learn the basic design of a suspension bridge and run experiments to understand forces like tension and compression.
LESSON 2 (POST-TRIP): Think about how the Brooklyn waterfront has changed overtime with the help of some great visuals and a writing activity
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Reading Rocks (Grades 2-4)
LESSON 1 (PRE-TRIP): Learn the difference between rocks and minerals and play a fun matching game to discover what minerals are in different rock types.
LESSON 2 (POST-TRIP): Go on an adventure through the rock cycle to learn how rocks can change over time and what causes those changes.
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Rove the Cove (Grades K-4)
LESSON 1 (PRE-TRIP): Discover the difference between living, nonliving, and manmade objects with a simple sorting activity.
LESSON 2 (POST-TRIP): Sharpen your graphing skills with some simple data and word problems all about the East River.
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Sustainable Landscapes (Grades 5-12)
LESSON 1 (PRE-TRIP): An introduction to sustainability and environmental footprints through a role playing activity highlighting the “tragedy of the commons” scientific phenomena. How environmentally friendly is your home? Figure out with a quick conservation quiz.
LESSON 2 (POST-TRIP): Practice the concepts of recycle and reuse using household items creatively. Explore social activism by developing a proposal and design for a sustainability project in your home, school, or neighborhood.
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The Awesome Oyster (Grades 4-8)
LESSON 1 (PRE-TRIP): What is an invertebrate? Identify the East River’s local invertebrates by using a scientific tool, a dichotomous key.
LESSON 2 (POST-TRIP): Practice observing trends in scientific oyster restoration data and calculating mean, median, and mode.
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Trees of Brooklyn Bridge Park (Grades K-1)
LESSON 1 (PRE-TRIP): Learn the parts of a plant and plant life cycle with a fun art project and a make-your-own storybook.
LESSON 2 (POST-TRIP): Discover the different shapes and colors of NYC tree leaves and play a fun game of “guess who” with a nature twist.
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Weather on the Water (Grades K-1)
LESSON 1 (PRE-TRIP): An introduction to solid, liquids, and gases and the role these play in weather & the water cycle. Practice writing weather words and identifying different weather images.
LESSON 2 (POST-TRIP): Discover the reasons we have seasons! Grab your family members (or some stuffed animals) to help build a human model of earth’s rotation around the sun. Or cut and color a diagram illustrating earth’s orbit and seasons.
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E3: Exploration, Ecology and the Environment (Grades K-6)
LESSON 1 (PRE-TRIP): Receive an introduction to habitats and discover which animals are local to NYC with a sorting game.
LESSON 2 (POST-TRIP): Reflect on the similarities and differences between aquatic and terrestrial habitats through visuals, coloring pages, Venn diagrams, and shoebox dioramas.
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Seining the River Wild (Grades K-3)
LESSON 1 (PRE-TRIP): Learn all about the parts of the fish and their distinguishing features with a coloring activity, a matching game, and a design challenge!
LESSON 2 (POST-TRIP): Reflect on the similarities and differences between aquatic and terrestrial habitats through visuals, coloring pages, Venn diagrams, and shoebox dioramas.
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Seining the River Wild (Grades 4-8)
LESSON 1 (PRE-TRIP): Receive an introduction to fish anatomy and fish adaptations and practice fish identification using a dichotomous key.
LESSON 2 (POST-TRIP): Coming soon!
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Plankton and Pollution (Grades 4-8)
LESSON 1 (PRE-TRIP): Become familiar with the waterways around NYC with a geography activity and the health and history of New York Harbor through a series of short videos.
LESSON 2 (POST-TRIP): Coming soon!
