Keyword: Currents

1

MSI—Mystery Spill Investigators

This activity provides an opportunity for students to use various resources including hands-on lab, vector analysis and a case study to determine what caused the massive bird death in Monterey Bay.

2

Drifters and Ocean Currents

The purpose of the lesson is for students to design and engineer a drifter and hypothesize and calculate stream velocity. The lesson includes an extension on how ocean currents affect oil spills.

3

Mystery of the Disappearing Sand

Students will explore the effects of wind, waves, and currents in the ocean as they move sediments and contribute to erosion of coastal areas. They will explore the pros and cons of beach replenishment and its effects on marine life.

4

Go With the Flow

Students will learn how to interpret data and demonstrate an understanding of how ocean floor topography influences the ocean’s currents. Background material and useful websites may be provided to assist higher level students in synthesizing current scientific research being used to project trends in current data and models.

5

Tracking Your Trash

Students at ECHS will explore the Lumber Watershed that includes the local Carolina Bay Lake Waccamaw. (This lesson can be adapted to any school location by determining (teacher or students) which watershed the community belongs). Students will use a N.C. watershed map (http://216.27.39.101/Plan/NC_River_Basins_Map.htm) to find their community’s watershed. Students will determine their connection to the […]

6

Float like a buoy, sing like a cetacean

Recent innovations in data-collecting instrument floats have revolutionized ocean sciences.   Over the past ten years more than 3000 such floats have been placed by ocean researchers throughout the marine world. These flexible, powerful, and relatively cheap devices provide a critical link in the data chain vital to understanding the complex interactions of the ocean system. […]

7

Where did you come from and how did you get here?

The earthquake off the coast of Japan in March, 2011, and the subsequent tsunami, deposited nearly 5 million tons of debris (known as JTMD) into the ocean. This created a unique opportunity to study the dispersal of floating debris, and the organisms attached to it, by the surface ocean currents. In Lesson 1 students will […]