Discuss with students the stages of the sea turtle's life cycle, beginning with the female's arrival on the beach to lay their eggs. Be sure to describe each stage in clear detail. Describe how the sea turtles must dig their nests, lay their eggs and then leave the vulnerable, unborn turtles and return to the sea. Tell the children how the eggs hatch, and the newborn turtles make the hazardous trek from their nests to the ocean. Describe what the baby turtles eat, once in the ocean, to help them grow to adulthood. Explain how these newly adult turtles will mate as their parents did, beginning the life cycle anew. Once you have described it, have your students create comic strips that depict the sea turtle’s life cycle.
Connect your classroom’s study of the life cycle of the sea turtle to real life turtles by tracking the movements of a turtle that has been rescued and released. At the SeaTurtle website, students will have the chance to track the actual life cycle of a turtle in real time. Introduce the class a few of the turtles that are being tracked by satellite and have the class chose a turtle to follow as a group, with each child making entries about the turtle's movements in a daily journal. Discuss with students where the turtle is in its life cycle each day, based upon its location and activity. Have students record the results of class discussions and questions that occur to them about the sea turtle in their journals.
If your school is located within a day-trip distance from a turtle nesting location, students can participate in an expedition to observe first-hand the sea turtles’ nesting sites. For example, Holden Beach, located on the southern tip of the North Carolina coast, has a volunteer group that, beginning each year in May, patrols the beach at dawn, looking for signs of nesting. Throughout the summer, the identified nesting sites are monitored, and in the late summer and early fall, the group observes signs of the hatchlings’ births and the turtles' return to the sea. Plan an expedition with your students to participate in one such patrol, providing them an opportunity to see the life cycle of sea turtles in action. Once you return to the classroom, have each student write an account of the expedition.
Sea turtles face numerous dangers. The females must leave the relative safety the ocean to create their nests, while the newborn hatchling must brave the perils of making their way from the nest to the sea. Break students into groups of three of four and have each group write a play about a mother turtle’s ordeal as she comes ashore to lay her eggs and return to the sea, or the perils encountered by a newborn turtle attempting to find its way to the sea. Require students to focus on the threats experienced by the mother or baby, while also including information about the cycle of the turtle’s life within the events of their plays. Have the groups perform their skits for the entire class.