Sea Turtle Migration: Make a Map, Ask a Question
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Sea turtles can travel between feeding areas and nesting regions, but they do not all follow one route. A useful migration map names the species, identifies the places, and explains what evidence supports its line.
This activity has two parts: reading a real migration example and drawing a pretend route to practice map skills. Keep those two kinds of evidence separate.
Read a real migration example
NOAA's western Pacific leatherback migration graphic describes journeys linking nesting beaches in Indonesia with feeding waters off the U.S. West Coast. The graphic illustrates a particular migration pattern, not a route followed by every leatherback.
With an adult, find Indonesia, the Pacific Ocean, and the west coast of North America on a world map. Add a title naming western Pacific leatherbacks. Mark nesting and feeding regions with different symbols, and include a key explaining the symbols.
If you draw a connecting line, label it simplified connection between regions. You have not plotted a specific turtle's location records. A broad migration illustration is different from an individual animal's measured track.
Practice with pretend points
On another sheet, draw a square grid from 0 to 5 along each side. Label left-to-right numbers x and bottom-to-top numbers y. Plot these invented points in order:
| Pretend observation | x | y |
|---|---|---|
| A | 1 | 1 |
| B | 2 | 3 |
| C | 4 | 3 |
| D | 5 | 4 |
Connect A to B to C to D. Title this sheet Pretend route: coordinate practice. The points are not satellite data, their units are not miles, and the grid is not a world map.
Which move changes only x? B to C. Which observations share a y value? B and C. Draw a different path between A and B without moving the points. You have shown why connecting two observations with a straight line does not prove the exact path between them.
Turn a line into questions
Ask what you would need before calculating speed. You would need time information and meaningful distance units. Neither is supplied by the pretend table. Ask what you would need to call the route a real turtle migration: observations tied to an identified animal, places, and a reliable recording method.
Learn about those methods in How do scientists track sea turtles?. For the real animals behind the example, see the leatherback species profile.
Teacher extension: Let younger learners trace the route with a finger and name each point. Older learners can explain two limits of the pretend data. Try Daily Migration afterward and identify its puzzle rules as game design, rather than evidence of a real turtle's navigation.