Lobsters of the Sea
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Lobsters of the Sea Unit Study
What do you know about the lobster in the fish tank at your local grocery store or fish market? Learn all about lobsters, their habitat and what their lives are like before they reach your plate.
How long can a lobster live? What kind of habitat does the lobster live in? What is the lobster's life cycle? Are lobsters endangered?
Hands-on activities from tide pooling to word walls are at your pincer tips! Scuttle on down for lobster learning activities...
Photo Credit: Lobsters by Academia IF
Used under creative commons
Creating a Lobster Environment in the Classroom
Setting the Stage for Lobsters

Photo Credit: Spiny Lobsters Confront One Another over Territory
by George Grall
Available on Amazon
The first two areas that I like to set up when beginning a unit study on lobsters are the Lobster tank
Lobsters live in salt water so you need to set up a salt water tank. Pet stores have all the equipment and information that you need but you may find that there is a knowledgeable older sibling or parent that can set it up for you.
Inspired by the turtle tank at the Boston Children's Museum, I looked for a wide flat tank with a clear bottom. This allows children to lie under the tank to get a view of the undersides of the lobsters as they move around the tank.
From research done by Jelle Atema I found that lobsters like to have hiding places so we fashioned hiding holes from broken cement blocks leaving the bottom open for observation.
Sensory Tables for your Lobster Unit Study
Explore the Lobster Habitat
Set the clear tank up as a salt water aquarium for a couple of lobsters. Warn the children not to put their hands in and keep a cover on top
Set the sand table up with sand, shells and rocks from the beach and a couple of plastic lobsters.
If I had to choose just one item for my classroom or homeschool area it would be the Sensory Table
Top all these experiences off by buying a couple of live lobsters and setting them up in the Sensory Table
Lobsters are Invertebrates
Lobsters have no bones
Photo Credit: Lobster Toon
on WPClipart, public domain
Lobsters are crustaceans. They have a hard exoskeleton.
When you eat a lobster, use this time for dissection. Examine the hard exoskeleton. See how the joints fit together and protect the soft body inside.
Clean and dry as much of the lobster's exoskeleton as possible. Spray it with a bleach solution and let that dry. Then put it in the sand table for exploration.
(NOTE: Always wash your hands after handling the shells.)
- Lobster Printout - Enchanted Learning Software
- Lobster Printout. The Lobster is a crustacean that lives on the ocean floor.
- How to Eat Lobster
- Colorful, step-by-step instructions on how
to eat a lobster. Also includes advice on cooking, and what parts you can eat,
and what parts you shouldn't!This Bobby approved section is coded for
optimum accessibility by people with disabilities. - Lobsters & Crayfish Note Cards
- With two sets of lobster cards you could create a Concentration or Go Fish game.
Observation of Lobsters in the Classroom
Lobster Larvae in the Classroom Project
Set up a lobster tank in your classroom. Read the Secret Life of Lobsters for inspiration and start observing lobsters. Make your student's experience memorable. Teach them to observe, write about their observations of lobsters and look for something new each and every day. Make lobsters be the key to discovering the world.
- Lobster Literacy
- Students ... raise lobsters from hatching to settlement and learned learned about lobster biology and the marine environment.
Lobsters and Marine Biologist Jelle Atema
Did you know that lobsters have a keen sense of smell?
- Jelle Atema: A Fine Sense of Smell
- Jelle Atema is a marine biologist at Boston University. Every spring he collects lobsters off the coast of Woods Hole, Massachusetts, not to eat but to study and observe. Professor Atema has been studying the lobster's keen sense of smell.
The Secret Life of Lobsters
Lobster Read Aloud
The author was a student of Jelle's and much of the book focuses on Jelle's work. It is fun, interesting, scholarly and at the same time a fascinating story to read. Once I picked it up I couldn't put it down. It also makes a delightful and informative book to read aloud with your children.
Lobster Anatomy & Biology
Lobster Anatomy Word Wall Bulletin Board

Photo Credit: Lobster Anatomy Word Wall
on Flickr, Creative Commons
Post a lobster on a bulletin board near where your children will be writing. As you learn more and more about the anatomy of lobsters, add more labels to that the children can easily spell and use the words they are learning.
Add photos of the lobster's muscle system, digestive system etc. and label them as you learn about them.
What do lobster eggs and growth stages look like? Add pictures and labels to the boarder of the bulletin board.
- Lobster Anatomy & Biology
- The Lobster Institute happily answers any questions you may have about lobsters as a follow up to your online research.
Lobster Prey
What do Lobsters eat?
About midway though our lobster unit study I open the Ocean Floor Learning Center on the classroom rug. I wait until the children have enough knowledge of the lives of lobsters for them to be able to use this knowledge in the center.
Set up an Ocean Floor Learning Center on your classroom rug. Inhabit the ocean floor with plastic lobsters, crabs, fish, shellfish, seaweed and other plants and animals found in a lobster's habitat. Use a permanent marker to label each animal with it's name. Create a shelf for storing each of the animals. Label each animal's spot on the shelf so that the children can practice reading the words as they put them back in order.
Children play the parts of animals of their choice as they act out scenes from the everyday lives of lobsters.
Tactile and visual learners will benefit from playing with the animals that the lobster eats. Turn your rug into an ocean floor and let the lobsters find their prey.
What do Lobsters Eat?
Lobster Prey
Photo Credit: Lobster
From WPClipart
Adult lobsters are carnivores or meat-eaters.
Most lobsters are nocturnal meaning that they are most active at night.
As adult predators, lobsters eat crabs, clams, worms, snails, mussels, flounder, and other lobsters.
Plastic crabs, flounder, and worms as well as real clam shells, snail shells and mussels shells can be added to the sand table for the children to act out the scenes of the predictor/prey relationship.
- OSL-American Lobster
- Learn about what lobsters eat at various stages of their development.
- Food Web Cards
- Lobster Food Web Cards
- Ocean Floor Learning Center for the Lobster Unit Study
- Set up an Ocean Floor Learning Center on your classroom rug. Inhabit the ocean floor with plastic lobsters, crabs, fish, shellfish, seaweed and other plants and animals found in a lobster's habitat.
Who eats the lobsters?
Lobsters are the prey too!
- Lobster Printout - Enchanted Learning Software
- Lobster Printout. The Lobster is a crustacean that lives on the ocean floor.
- Hyannis Whale Watcher - Marine Life
- Lobsters are both predators and scavengers.
Giant Lobsters
- Poseidon the giant lobster | YeinJee's Asian News
- Fun and discovery blog, with funny junk and bizarre stuff, as well as knowledge sharing in science and technology, history, geography, mysterious stuff, Internet, gadgets, and the latest buzz.
Rescuing Old Lobsters
- NYC eatery grants freedom to lobster centenarian - Yahoo! News
- A 140-year-old lobster once destined for a dinner plate received the gift of life Friday from a Park Avenue seafood restaurant. News, Headlines and Latest Stories on Yahoo! News
Connecticut College Student Studies Lobsters
Lobstermen of Long Island Sound and the Struggle with Shell Disease. by Melanie Bender

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Connecticut, Lobster Fishing Boat Scene
Buy at AllPosters.com
Melanie Bender studied the lobster industry for her integrated project at Connecticut College.She became fascinated by not only the lobsters themselves but also by a certain shell disease the has become common in the lobsters of Long Island Sound. This disease does not effect the meat of the lobster but it does effect the looks of the lobster so humans find them unappetizing. Melanie looked at the consequences of this disease on the livelihood of Long Island Sound fisherman.
For more information on studying lobsters check out the following links:
- Lobster Monitoring Program
- The Marine Fisheries Division initiated a Lobster Monitoring Program in 1982 to provide basic information needed to assess the long-term health of the Long Island Sound (LIS) lobster population. The Department's goal is to ensure that the Sound's lobster population is sustained while also providing opportunity for harvest by commercial and recreational fishermen. The Lobster Program has two main components:
- American Lobster Monitoring - Seasonal Job Opportunities
- The American Lobster Monitoring Project of the Marine Fisheries Division has 2 summer Seasonal Resource Assistant (SRA) positions available. The job duties will be field oriented, but the duty station will be the DEP Marine Headquarters located at 333 Ferry Road, Old Lyme, CT.
- Connecticut College : Goodwin-Niering Center - Seniors
- Seniors in the Goodwin-Niering Center certificate program at Connecticut College take Certificate Seminar ES 495, combining their coursework, internships, and research experience into their senior integrative project. This project is presented to faculty of the Center and, finally, as an individual
- Connecticut Lobstermen Volunteer to Help Measure Temperature Trends in Long Island Sound
- One of the most popular and valuable animals living
in Long Island Sound is the American lobster. Lobsters
are most abundant in waters off Maine and Canada,
with the Sound marking this species' southern-most inshore
boundary. The Sound's lobster population reached
record high abundance in 1999 but suffered a massive
die-off in the fall of that year and their numbers in the
Sound have continued to decline for the last decade.
Lobster Books
Gather a wide variety of books about lobsters, the ocean and soon the children will be reading all around the room.
Lobster Chair for Storytime
Novelty Lobster Blog
- Lobsters everywhere
- Unique lobster items discovered all across the Internet. Lobster platter, lobster phone, lobster chair, lobster towel and lobster silhouette
More Lobster Activities
- Learning About Lobsters - Unit Study on Sea Creatures, Lesson 10
- Learning About Lobsters - Unit Study on Sea Creatures, Lesson 10. Have you seen a tank of live lobsters in a restaurant or the supermarket? They aren't very friendly looking, are they? Learn all about lobsters!
- Lobster Worksheet
- Lobster seatwork.
- Gulf of Maine Research Institute: Lobster Activities
- Learn All About Lobsters: History of Lobstering, Lobster Boats, Lobster Life Cycle and mating, even how to eat them!
Includes: Lobster Math, Making Buoys, Harvesting Lobsters, Crustacean Poetry, Lobster Factoids, Lobster Anatomy, and Lobster Links. - Lobster Lesson Plans
- Lobster Lesson Plans from the Lobster Conservency
Lobster Habitat Bulletin Board

Photo Credit: Lobster Habitat
Used for Educational Purposes
From the Learning and Teaching Scotland Archive collection
- 5-14 - Illustrations and photos - Natural habitats
- Royalty-free colour illustrations of different natural habitats. These are offered free for educational use by Learning and Teaching Scotland.
- Marine Biology - Crustaceans: Lobsterng Island New York
- As they eat, Lobsters tear their food into tiny pieces. When biologist, Frank Steimle, began studying the contents of lobster stomachs he thought at first that they were consuming black plastic bags but eventually discovered that the small black particles were instead broken up bits of skate egg cases. In face, the skate egg cases make up nearly 12 percent of a lobster's diet.
- Fourth Grade Ocean Habitat Tanks
- Ocean Habitat Bulletin Board researched and designed by 4th graders.
Lobster Bulletin Board
Lobster and Sealife Bulletin Board

An Attractive Blue Lobster with Red Feelers and a Crab and a Shrimp and Some Other Crustacea
P. Lackerbauer
Available at Allposters
Cover your bulletin board in burlap. This will give it a sandy base imitating the ocean floor where lobsters live. Choose a border that depicts ocean waves, seaweed or other ocean related habitat. Populate your bulletin board with plants and animals that live in the lobster's habitat. Add these last items gradually as you learn about them with your students.
When you add a crab, for instance, talk about how lobsters eat crabs. Look at the letters in the word crab to see the sounds they make, note the cr blend at the beginning of the word, the short vowel "a" in the middle of the word and the letter "b" at the end of the word. The words on your lobster bulletin board will help children know how to spell words during writing workshop time.
Lobster Pot Words
Lobster Literacy Center
Photo Credit: Frog Tongue
on Photobucket, Creative Commons
Use a permanent marker to write a lobster word on each plastic lobster. Children take turns with the tongs pulling lobsters out of the pot and reading the words written on the lobsters.
Words for the Lobster Pot
Lobster Pot Word List
Which words would you include in the lobster pot? These should be words related to the lobster unit study that children need to know when reading and writing about lobsters. Please feel free to add your own words and vote for those lobster words that you think would be most useful to your children.
Lobster Poetry and Songs
Find the Lobster Words
Later, children can be given a red dry erase marker and asked to look for the word lobster as many times as possible. Let them use a Lobster shaped Cookie Cutter to find the word. Then write the word on a recording sheet with a Lobster Pen.
- The Lobster Quadrille - Lewis Carroll (C L Dodgson)
- See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle - will you come and join the dance? ... - Preschool Sea Animals Songs and Music
- Two songs about lobsters for PreK-1 classes.
Keep your little Lobsters Busy
Oceans of Sea Life Activites
Lobsters
Lobster Literacy Bag
The Plush lobster makes a wonderful mascot for your Lobster Literacy Bag.
The crustacean puzzle helps with learning spacial relations and logical thinking.
Pens with sea life toppers make writing fun and can also be used for Write the Room activities.
Use the dice for making lobster games such as a board game where the lobster needs to crawl from hideout to food supply to hideout.
Lobster Math
Lobster Trap One-to-One Correspondence

Buy several sets of lobster and lobster trap napkin rings.
1. Children match the lobsters to the lobster traps.
2. Count the lobster traps.
3. Count the lobsters.
4. Notice that there are the same number of traps as lobsters.
Variation: Make patterns of lobsters and traps.
Skip Counting with Lobster Legs
How many legs on a lobster?
- Plastic Lobster, Lobster Replica - Animal Toys
- Lobster, 8 1/2-inch plastic (length includes feelers) - Your purchase helps save endangered species!
Lobster Quadrille Skip Counting by 4's
The Lobster Quadrille
Alice At The Palace (1981) - Mock Turtle, Lobster Quadrille
The Lobster Quadrille
- The Lobster Quadrille from Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll (chapter10)
- The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, ...you can have no idea what a delightful thing a Lobster Quadrille is!'
'No, indeed,' said Alice. 'What sort of a dance is it?'
Mock Turtle and Gryphon demonstrating the Lobster Quadrille to Alice
'Why,' said the Gryphon, 'you first form into a line along the sea-shore-'
'Two lines!' cried the Mock Turtle.
Board Games about Lobsters
Play games and learn more about lobsters and the ocean they live in.
Lobster Colors and Coloring
Blue, Yellow and Red Lobsters
- Blue Lobsters
- Only one in two million lobsters are blue in color. Scientists blame this on a genetic defect that causes the lobster to produce an excessive amount of protein.
Apparently the yellow lobster is even rarer with only one in 30 million live lobsters being yellow in color. - Lobster Coloring Page
- Color a Lobster.
- Lobster coloring page
- Coloring pages lobster. Free realistic colouring pictures. Educational coloring sheets to print and download. Coloring book pictures.
Lobster Crafts

Photo Credit: Susan Gillette Mosaic Lobster 16x16 Poster Print
Available on Amazon
- HowStuffWorks "Lobster Craft: Loony Lobster"
- This Loony Lobster animal craft is one cute crustacean. Learn how to make your own Loony Lobster with these illustrated instructions.
- Lobster Origami
- Make a lobster.
- Lobster Mosaic
- Adam Begley used chips of tiles to make this beautiful lobster mosaic. Adam has a lot of fun teaching a mosaic class in Traverse City, MI at the Traverse City Art Center facility.
He also offers an "Online, Mosaics 101 for Kids" that is send out in segments, like assignments.
Parents can be a wonderful resource for your classroom. Ask for donations of broken times and volunteers to help with this project.
For a less ambitions project, children could use construction paper or bits of recycled paintings to make a Lobster Mosaics. - Paper Plate Lobster
- Find fun crafts and projects for preschoolers at PBS KIDS Sprout including a lobster made from a paper plate.
Lobsters learn about the Ocean
Lobster Habitat
- Ocean Unit - Ideas for Teaching, Resources for Lesson Plans, and Activities for Unit Planning
- Float potato whales in a Salt Water Experiment
“Jelle Atima was looking for an animal to study with high post-experimental eatability.”
Eat a Lobster Tonight
Live Lobsters Shipped to your Door!
Cook a Lobster
- Boiled Maine Lobster Recipe : : Food Network
- Food Network invites you to try this Boiled Maine Lobster recipe from Dinner: Impossible.
Lobster Teaching Fashion
Lobster Fashion inspired by Ms. Frizzle
Exploration beyound Lobsters
Come explore the life of a Marine Biologist:
Would you like to become a Marine Biologist and study lobsters?
Would you dress-up to teach about lobsters?
Lobster Costume
Lobster Cards
Stone Stoup Homeschooling Online Unit Study Directory
This Lobster Unit Study is in Stone Stoup Homeschooling Online Unit Study Directory

- Unit Studies: Stone Soup Homeschool Network - Stone Soup Homeschool Network
- Stone Soup Homeschool Network We are very excited to be entrusted with this rather comprehensive Unit Study Database. It was started many years ago, and maintained for the last decade by the Wheelers
Lobsters of the Sea just received a Purple Star
Congratulations Lobsters!
Photo Credit: Lobster receiving a Purple Star
original image by FlickR member "hazelnutter" licensed under CC 2.0.
Lobsters of the Sea just received a Purple Star !
Thank you Purple Star Squids for the honor of receiving a Purple Star!
Only a few purple stars are given out each week, to exceptional NEW lenses created by Giant Squids. Read all the goods and news about purple stars.
Lobster Chat
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oceansky May 28, 2012 @ 11:43 am | delete
- Great information about Lobsters. You have been blessed.
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SecondHandJoe
May 24, 2012 @ 6:14 pm | delete
- I love thorough lenses like this one! Especially about such a delicious subject. I just selected this lens for my quest for 'yummy' food. great job, thank you!
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milkcananime
May 10, 2012 @ 2:43 am | delete
- Interesting information about Lobsters. I wonder do you know anything about Alaska Crabs? :)
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iijuan12
Mar 28, 2012 @ 10:12 pm | delete
- Thank you for bringing this wonderful lens to my attention! It's now a featured lens at http://www.squidoo.com/maine-lesson-plan .
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brynimagire
Mar 26, 2012 @ 1:37 pm | delete
- Very interesting lens ! Wonderful.
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mjtaylor
Mar 14, 2012 @ 11:41 pm | delete
- Totally deserved your Purple Star!! And great to see the distinction made between "spiny lobsters" which are really crawfish and real lobsters with claws! Cool lens!!
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ann helen
Dec 11, 2011 @ 7:18 pm | delete
- Tank you so much, for this interresting text! I'm a norwegian student, I'm actually working as an apprentice with lobsters. We get female lobsters with eggs, we have a hatchery, and we have incubators where we "store" our newly born lobster larvaes. I really enjoyed reading about these extraordinary animals. I only wanted to ask, are blue lobsters that rare? we have a lot of blue lobsters, but this may be because of their ability of changing colors after heir habitat. Thank you so much! Ann Helen
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TeddyB
Nov 12, 2011 @ 8:50 pm | delete
- i enjoyed reading through your lens...it's very interesting and learned so much from it. thanks. don't forget to buy the freshest fish and seafood from your trusted fish wholesalers
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EverythingMouse Nov 5, 2011 @ 9:05 am | delete
- Such an informative lens as always. Squid Angel Blessings to you.
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Michelle Hallivan
Oct 22, 2011 @ 11:05 pm | delete
- i enjoyed reading through your lens...it's very interesting and learned so much from it. thanks. don't forget to buy the freshest fish and seafood from your trusted fish wholesalers
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Joan4
Sep 19, 2011 @ 7:39 pm | delete
- Congratulations on that purple star! I wish I had had a teacher who dressed up as a lobster to teach about lobsters. I always learn from you! I know I say that over and over, but it is the truth! Thank you!
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worldrevivalnetwork
Sep 11, 2011 @ 11:26 pm | delete
- interesting lens
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Sequoia-Technology Aug 16, 2011 @ 6:48 am | delete
- What a super lens and for such a good cause. I shall visit more of your lenses!
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GonnaFly
Aug 14, 2011 @ 6:46 pm | delete
- What an excellent study. This lens has been blessed and added to my animal alphabet lens.
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Fitzcharming Aug 10, 2011 @ 9:02 pm | delete
- Here I've run across another one of your wonderful and fun filled education lessons. I wish you had been my teacher. Or better yet I wish I had you as a resource when my kids were in school.
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ChineseKitesforKids
May 21, 2011 @ 9:08 am | delete
- I just love all your ideas!! Love them. Another great lens as usual
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itsmuzza2011 Mar 17, 2011 @ 7:02 pm | delete
- lobster for tea mummy? oooh i think so after seeing this lens , well done great work
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MamaBelle
Feb 11, 2011 @ 7:51 am | delete
- Great info. Well done on the lens!
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MamaBelle
Feb 11, 2011 @ 7:51 am | delete
- Great info. Well done on the lens!
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Manikandan123
Feb 4, 2011 @ 12:09 pm | delete
- This is fascinating for a crustacean fanatic
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- Load More
About the Author of this lens
Find out what I'm up to when I'm not investigating lobsters.
on SheToldMe.Join me on Xomba.
by Evelyn_Saenz
My passion is teaching and finding ways to teach children in fun, hands-on, creative ways. The unit studies I make on Squidoo reflect my view that learning... more »
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![Journal of Shellfish Research (Long Island Sound Lobster Research Initiative) [Vol. 24, No. 3/Oct. 2005]](http://squidutils.com/us/bB0036FKON4.jpg)










