UNIT 1 · LAB 1 · PRELAB
Dive Into The Microscopic Ocean
A five-minute tour of the drifting world you’ll meet under the microscope
⏱ About 20 minutes · 🎯 Do this before lab · 🔬 No experience needed — just curiosity
WHY YOU’RE HERE
Life on Earth started in the sea — as specks
A five-minute tour of the drifting world you’ll meet under the microscope
In lab you’ll put a drop of the ocean under a microscope and meet plankton: the tiny drifters that feed almost everything else in the sea and pump out a huge share of the oxygen you’re breathing right now. This page just introduces you to the cool stuff first, so lab feels like recognizing old friends.
Spot the difference
Tell phytoplankton (make their own food) from zooplankton (eat others).
Know the tool
Understand how a microscope magnifies and why you start on low power.
Meet two stars
Recognize diatoms and dinoflagellates — you’ll hunt for both in lab.
See the big picture
Connect these specks to oxygen, food webs, and where life came from.
INTERACTIVE
Meet the Drifters – They are Way Cool
Each card shows an organismA living individual made up of cells. you may see in lab. Tap to reveal what makes it special.
PHYTOPLANKTON
Diatoms
A single cell in a two-part glass shell made of silica — like a tiny jewelry box. No engine, so it just drifts. Look for geometric shapes.
THE ORIGINALS
Cyannobacteria
Microscopic photosynthesizers that first filled our air with oxygen billions of years ago. Proof that the smallest life changed the whole planet.
ZOOPLANKTON
Copepod
A tiny crustacean — a relative of crabs and shrimp. One of the most abundant animals on Earth and the basis of most foodwebs.
THE BIG IDEA
One Drop of Seawater
A single drop can hold thousands of living things. That’s what you’ll be exploring in lab — an entire ecosystem you can’t see with your eyes.
SEE IT FOR REAL
Cool stuff the experts already made
A few windows into the microscopic ocean from museums, ocean institutes, and scientists.
The Plankton Chronicles
Beautiful, non-technical short films of living plankton drifting, feeding, and glowing.
The Secret Life of Plankton
A friendly overview from the Smithsonian’s Ocean portal — the science, in plain English.
JUST BECAUSE IT’S AWESOME
The microscopic ocean is stunning
Living glass
Diatoms under high magnification.
Living glass
Diatoms under high magnification.
Little Tiny Fishies
Fish larvae are technically zooplankton
Red Tides Revealed
Dinoflagellates under high magnification.
Tiny giant
A copepod, one of Earth’s most common animals.
Living glass
Radiolarians under high magnification.
DESIGN INSPIRATION
Nature’s tricks
These are the real strategies plankton use to stay afloat. Steal them for your design!
DESIGN INSPIRATION
Steal these shapes
Real plankton are your design catalog.
Built-in spikes
Spiny diatom
Team drifting
Chain forming diatoms
Spread out
A copepod’s long antennae.
Spiky & smal
A crab larva.
WHY YOU’RE HERE
Tiny drifters with a big problem
Plankton are the drifting organisms at the baseA substance that accepts hydrogen ions (H⁺) or releases hydroxide ions (OH⁻). of the ocean food web — and phytoplankton make about half the oxygen you breathe. To survive, they must stay in the sunlit surface waters (the photic zone), but they can’t swim against the currents and they tend to sink. In lab you’ll become the force of evolution and design a plankton that solves this — with one catch: you must use all your clay.
Know the zone
Understand the photic zone and why plankton must stay in it.
Two tricks
Slow sinking with shape (spikes, flat forms) and buoyancy (oil / trapped air).
The challenge
Use ALL your clay, don’t let it float, and make it sink as slowly as possible.
See the big picture
Connect your design to real plankton and to natural selection.
CHECK YOURSELF
Five quick interactions
Do these to get ready — they take about 15 minutes total.
List of terms
- organism
- base