Marine debris, especially plastics, are transported through the watershed via wind and water currents. Eventually, they end up in the ocean where they have a direct negative impact on marine life and an indirect negative impact on human life. In this lesson, students will collect debris on their school grounds,“x” number of miles from the […]
Students will learn about oil-eating bacteria. They will determine the best environmental conditions necessary for oil digestion.
In 2010, the BP Oil Rig Deepwater Horizon exploded releasing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Many physical ocean characteristics can effect the flow of the oil. In this activity students will look at the surface winds of 2 buoys in the Gulf of Mexico and graph the data.
Using scientific inquiry, students will use Voice Thread to communicate their observations about various physical components of a watershed.
We use models to understand and predict behaviour. We model the weather; designs for ocean going ships, airplanes, bridges and automobiles. The dynamics associated with the movement water in a river estuary is the focus of this investigation. In this lesson we are going to look at the process of creating a model for tracking […]
The physics lesson demonstrates how classic physics equations, such as measuring the volume of water flowing through a pipe, can be applied to real-world situations. This lesson will teach students how to predict the volume of water that will flow through the inlet of the Columbia River between high and low tides.
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.
Over the course of this project, students will be expected to collaborate and share collected data with classroom communities to create a final product that interprets possible connections on the impact of marine life and the human and natural communities in the gulf; cost of clean-up efforts and who will bear the burden of the […]
How OMZ’s (Oxygen Minimum Zones) may or may not be formed by the patterns of upwelling and downwelling in two Eastern Coastal zones – California / Oregon.
This lesson is about exploring CMOP glider data, comparing and contrasting information from different missions in terms of temperature, salinity, oxygen, and other variables. Students will demonstrate knowledge of analysis by making inferences on the data in a variety of ways.
Students will use the Phoebe Glider to explore the concepts of scale and slope. Using real-time data from the CMOP website, students will create tables and graphs.
This activity will expose students to the characteristics, functions and benefits of having gliders as tools for ocean observation. Students will investigate the movement of gliders by performing a simple simulation.
Students will be studying the structure, function and purpose of drifters; based on knowledge they will design and build drifter prototypes; based on near-real-time data students will also draw conclusions about ocean currents.
Research programs at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) encompass the entire ocean, from the surface waters to the deep seafloor, and from the coastal zone to the open sea. The need to understand the ocean in all its complexity and variability drives MBARI's research and development efforts.