Zoo class ~ Oceanography

This week we went to the depths of the ocean with a class on Oceanography~ The Ocean at Work...

To begin our class we learned some key vocabulary words and their meanings:

Ocean, Tides, Gravity, Currents, and Density....

71% of the Earth's surface is covered with water... it affects the climate of our planet... and the food we eat...

We watched a brief clip from the Blue Planet...(which we love)    you can watch an 8 minute clip from the IMAX version here ...

The kids learned about tides, tidal zones, and experimented with gravity using inflatables... ~ how tides work and the gravitational pull of the sun and the moon on the water in the ocean... (a great experiment using balloons and water can be found here)



Some cool pictures of high and low tides in Nova Scotia:

  high tide    low tide

Spring tides, Neap tides, low and high tides... the kids were able to recognize each after a brief explanation... Spring tides are when a full moon lines up in a straight path with the sun and the earth... (occurs 2x a month all year)... Neap tides occur when the sun, earth and moon are at right angles to each other (during the 1st and 3rd quarters)...Here's a chart that my kids looked at once we got home to review the different tides...



The another highlight for the kids~ a clip from "Finding Nemo" to bring in the East Australian Current... (see the clip here) and the importance of currents and the types: surface and undersea...and we did a cool experiment with water and food coloring...

   you can see some great wave pictures of the EAC here...

We then followed the class with some more experiments...  

Ice Cube Currents (you can find how to do this and more great experiments here)



and finished by learning how all undersea currents are created by differences in salt content and temperature... and how currents transport heat and cold over thousands of miles by carrying warm water toward the poles and and cold polar water toward the equator... 

Here's some more resources to go with an ocean unit :

Atlantic Ocean unit study and lapbook from HSS  (click here)

Oceans Book lists (click here)

Fun "Ocean in a Bottle" experiment (click here)

Some great ocean crafts... (click here)

Have a wonderful ocean experience and HAPPY LEARNING!!!