Module V - Ocean Systems Introduction

by Kris Owens

By the time I'd worked through each section of module five, I felt like I'd been on a journey!  Add in the main fundraiser for the year for our school, an incredible amount of snow between Friday night and Sunday, and a computer that kept going on the fritz, and I was a bit frazzled.  But, I did learn quite a bit last week.

Many of the topics covered, relate to ones that I teach, and provided excellent review, as well as in-depth explanations and background information.  The section in which I found myself grasping ideas I had previously been fuzzy on, and acquiring new ones as well, was "Getting into Hot Water."

My learning began right away with the simple act of placing a hand on two different surfaces, leading to a better understanding of heat capacity.  The difference in the heat capacity of water and land helped me to recognize the relationship between the heat capacity of great bodies of water such as our oceans, and Earth's climate.

I especially enjoyed the lab, "Does a Watched Kettle Boil?"  It provoked a great deal of thinking for me, particularly the extend question, referring to why the temperature of water stays the same, while boiling.  I hadn't encountered this idea previously, and found I wasn't sure why the temperature did stay the same.

With a brief foray into the land of additional explanation, I quickly understood that when water reaches the temperature of boiling, it evaporates.  So, the temperature never goes above the point at which it turns to gas.

The NASA/JPL video that followed, Oceans of Climate Change , served to solidify ideas about the heat-capacity of water. This is a very cool experiment that I would love at some point, to demonstrate for students. It may be that I share the video this week, to show them the cool "stuff" I am learning.  They are aware of the class I am taking and would definitely enjoy seeing this video!

The section "Motion in the Ocean" was particularly relevant to me.  One of the quarterly themes we have at Fireweed is "Currents."  During this theme, we focus on ocean currents, atmospheric currents, and climate. The content explored in this module will help to reinforce and enrich many of the ideas we explore. 

A particularly useful resource I have found for introducing ocean currents to younger students (3rd - 6th) is called Victor the Vector.  Ocean currents, vectors, and the Gulf Stream, are just a few of the topics covered in this story of a vector personified, who gets separated from his mother in a storm.

Ideas I may tend to overlook, in terms of this theme, were also brought to mind.  Making connections between currents, climates, and seasonal change, to the people and cultures of different enviornments, are ideas I haven't particularly emphasized.  Taking a closer look at how these relate to our communities and ways of life, are a means to bring greater relevance to these topics.

The "Reason for the Seasons" module introduced several resources I can use during a Journey North project our school participates in, called mystery class . This is an online project, in which ten mystery class sites around the world, submit sunrise and sunset data once a week, for eleven weeks.

Participants graph the data, learn about the reason for the seasons, and anxiously await cultural clues that arrive over the last three to four weeks.   Using their data, new knowledge, and the cultural clues, they try to figure out the locations of the ten mystery classes.

Our school has been lucky enough to be a mystery class site on two occasions.  Journey North is always looking for sites with a variety of daylight changes (mid-latitude, high/low latitude...), so a school in Alaska has a good chance of being selected. There were numerous interactive, audio, and video resources that support the themes at our school and the science content I introduce to our students.  They are all saved in the appropriate folders at Teachers' Domain!  

Three Colleagues -

I am trying to visit different blogs each week.  This week I decided to check out the blogs of Dan Adair, Cheryl Emerson, and Kathy East. 

Dan Adair -    Dan discussed the misconception that summer and winter are somehow related to the distance between Earth and the sun.  Students are usually surprised to learn that Earth is actually at its farthest point away from the sun, during summer in the northern hemisphere.  A NASA outreach website addresses this, as well as other common misconceptions.  Check out Sun – Earth Misconceptions.   

Cheryl Emerson - Twice now, when I have visited a participant’s blog, I discover something interesting that I missed.  This time it was when Cheryl pointed out the interesting feature of the ocean floor called a guyot.  It was then that I realized I must have missed the diagram, “Features of the Ocean Floor.” looked back over module and I still don’t see it…

Kathy East – What a great sunset picture you have as your background!  My students are building hot air balloons at this time and an important topic we cover during this project is density.  Thanks for the link to the you-tube video, “Water Temperature and Density.”