Ocean Zones

Take students from the shore to the deep sea with this one-page worksheet on ocean zones! Students read about four zones, label them on a simple ocean diagram, and decide where five ocean organisms live.

The passage explains that the ocean is not the same from top to bottom, so scientists divide it into zones by depth and sunlight. The intertidal zone is the shore between high tide and low tide, where sea stars and crabs must hold on as the water comes and goes. The sunlit zone reaches down about 200 meters, and because sunlight lets algae and tiny plankton make food, most ocean life lives there. The twilight zone, from about 200 to 1,000 meters, gets only dim light, so no plants can grow. Below 1,000 meters, the midnight zone is completely dark and very cold, and some animals, like the anglerfish, make their own light. A large drawing shows the shore and each zone with its depth. In the first activity, students label the four zones from a word bank. In the second activity, students read about a crab, algae, a lanternfish, a tripod fish, and a tuna and write the letter of the zone where each lives. The sheet is written to Texas TEKS 7.12B and also fits NGSS MS-LS2-1.

What's inside:

• A short passage with a large ocean zones drawing
• 4 zone labels with a word bank
• 5 organism and zone letter boxes
• A visual answer key with the labeled diagram

How teachers use it:

• With the Aquatic Biomes of the World worksheet
• For bell work, stations, or an exit ticket
• As homework or sub plans, with no prep needed

It takes about 10 minutes and prints clearly in black and white. This worksheet is part of our Reading in Science series of biome map worksheets.