Participants will launch the rocky shore investigation by examining authentic evidence, surfacing patterns and uncertainties, and co-framing a focused line of inquiry that will guide upcoming aquarium and field-based evidence collection. They will establish shared expectations for documentation, collaboration, and revision while connecting the work to scientific practice, data-informed reasoning, and public-facing communication.

Participants will investigate a puzzling rocky shore pattern, refine a focused investigable question and hypothesis, and co-design a credible evidence-gathering plan that integrates organism observations, habitat zones, tide and weather variables, and interdependence for upcoming aquarium and fieldwork.

Participants will collect and audit traceable rocky shore evidence during aquarium and field investigations, compare the reliability of their methods across team members, and revise working claims and hypotheses based on early patterns, anomalies, and critique. They will document observations with professional-quality notes, photos, counts, measurements, and source records that can support later analysis, field guide writing, habitat mapping, food-web modeling, and public-facing data stories.

Participants will transform organized rocky shore evidence into defensible claims, visual explanations, and draft showcase artifacts by analyzing patterns and anomalies, connecting adaptations and interdependence to habitat conditions, and revising products through collegial critique.

Participants will present their rocky shore investigation products to an authentic audience, defend evidence-based conclusions about organism survival and interdependence, gather collegial feedback from peers and community partners, and document how critique and new perspectives sharpened their professional practice as investigators and communicators.