C-MORE Science Kits

Ocean Conveyor Belt

(Grades 8–12 for Lessons 1 & 2; Grades 10–12 for Lessons 3 & 4)

Ocean Conveyor Belt Kit image Collecting and analyzing oceanographic data help students appreciate the relevance of marine science to their own lives and understand the value of technology in science. This four-lesson kit introduces some fundamental concepts in oceanography including density, ocean circulation, nutrient cycling, and variations in the chemical, biological, and physical properties of seawater through hands-on and computer-based experiments. Each lesson is designed to be completed in about 70 minutes, but the activities are discrete and can be rearranged to fit various curricular objectives and time constraints. Pre- and post- surveys are included to assess student learning.

Lesson Materials

By clicking any of the links to download the lesson materials, you acknowledge that C-MORE educational materials may be reproduced for educational, non-commercial purposes only. Please contact us at kits@soest.hawaii.edu or (808) 956-7739 to request teacher answer keys for this kit.

Complete lesson plans (without teacher answer keys, 3 MB PDF)
Lesson 1 resources:

PowerPoint: Lesson 1 – Water Stratification – NARRATED (42 MB)
PowerPoint: Lesson 1 – Water Stratification – NON-NARRATED (3 MB)
Lesson 1 – Worksheet Template (400K Powerpoint)
Example tank set-up video (40 MB .m4v)

Lesson 2 resources:

PowerPoint: Lesson 2 – Deep Ocean Circulation – NARRATED (46 MB)
PowerPoint: Lesson 2 – Deep Ocean Circulation – NON-NARRATED (9 MB)
Embedded video for Powerpoint: Deep water model (save this file to same folder on your computer as the PowerPoint file to view the embedded video)
Embedded video for PowerPoint: The Global Conveyor Belt (save this file to same folder on your computer as the PowerPoint file to view the embedded video)
Click here for a higher quality video of The Global Conveyor Belt Animation (but unable to embed in ppt)
Map of Surface Currents for Transparency (JPG)

Lesson 3 resources:

PowerPoint: Lesson 3 – Using Data to Explore Ocean Processes – NARRATED (81 MB)
PowerPoint: Lesson 3 – Using Data to Explore Ocean Processes – NON-NARRATED (8 MB)

Lesson 4 resources:

PowerPoint: Lesson 4 – Nutrients and Ocean Circulation – NARRATED (49 MB)
PowerPoint: Lesson 4 – Nutrients and Ocean Circulation – NON-NARRATED (4 MB)
HOT-BATS data (Excel)
HOT-204 Nitrate + Nitrite profile (PDF)

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