Oceans

1. Oceans Ocean floor, currents, tides, ecosystem

2. VA SOLs 4-6th grade • 6.8 The student will investigate and understand the organization of the solar system and the relationships among the various bodies that comprise it: the unique properties of Earth as a planet; & the cause of tides. • 5.6 The student will investigate and understand characteristics of the ocean environment. Key concepts include • geological characteristics (continental shelf, slope, rise); • physical characteristics (depth, salinity, major currents); and • biological characteristics (ecosystems) • 4.5 The student will investigate and understand how plants and animals in an ecosystem interact with one another and the nonliving environment: behavioral and structural adaptations; flow of energy through food webs.

3. Ocean facts • Over 70% of the Earth's surface is covered with water and the oceans contain 97% of all water on Earth. 

4. The four oceans? • There is only one ocean.  The four oceans of the world are: the Arctic, the Indian, the Pacific, and the Atlantic. They are all connected to each other.

5. Where does ocean water come from? • From watersheds. Rain, tiny streams, roaring rivers all eventually lead to an ocean and contribute water.

6. Water cycle • The water cycle, kept in action by the sun, moves water to and from the oceans. Ocean water makes up 80% of all water evaporated.

7. Erosion • Erosion can occur and more than water leaves the watershed. • You can play the watershed game at • http://www.bellmuseum.umn.edu/games/watershed/

8. Delta • When a large river dumps eroded material into the ocean, a rise or small hill can form.

9. Delta • Many factors can cause erosion which causes a delta to form.

10. Amazon delta • The Amazon River, where piranha live, has a cone shaped deposit from many tons of debris being washed into the ocean during the rainy season.

11. Matching • What cycle moves water? The ____ • Where does most of the water evaporated come from? • When erosion dumps sand, soil, etc at the mouth of a river it is called a _______ Water cycle Delta Oceans

12. The ocean floor What is on the floor of the ocean? How is the area divided up?

13. Continental shelf • Beginning at the shore line, the continental shelf stretches toward deeper parts of the ocean. • When soil and other eroded materials are washed to the ocean, the shelf forms.

14. Continental shelf • The most organisms can be found here because sunlight is available for plants and many nutrients are washed from land onto the shelf.

15. Continental shelf • The shelf is widest in the area of Russia known as Siberia. It stretches almost 1000 miles into the Arctic Ocean. • Florida has hardly any shelf because the Gulf Stream whisks it away.

16. Continental slope • When the continental shelf suddenly gets much steeper, it is called the continental slope. • Water pressure increases and fewer organisms live here.

17. Continental slope • Bioluminescence, light given off by living organisms, helps creatures survive where little or no sunlight penetrates.

18. Continental rise • Between the deepest part of the ocean and the continental slope you would find • The continental rise. Very little light penetrates thus few animals or plants can survive.

19. Abyssal Plains • Deep, deep in the ocean no light penetrates making the water dark as night and cold. The pressure is great. Few things can live under such conditions.

20. Abyssal Plains • Although most of the plains are smooth and flat, hot vents stick up like chimneys and trenches deeper than the Grand Canyon can be found.

21. Abyssal Plains • Clams • Tubeworms • Spider crabs • Strange fish • Bacteria • These creatures can survive near the hot vents because they have both heat and mineral rich water.

22. Matching • What is the lowest level of the ocean floor called? • In which are would you find the most animal and plant life? Abyssal Plains Continental shelf Continental rise Continental slope

23. Matching • What is the lowest level of the ocean floor called? • Abyssal Plains • In which are would you find the most animal and plant life? • Continental shelf

24. Internet Resources • http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/science_up_close/518/deploy/interface.html features of the ocean floor

25. Animal adaptations • Fish have body parts that help them move and breathe in water. • Jellyfish have stinging cells to capture prey.

26. Ocean Vertebrates • Vertebrates have backbones. • Turtles are reptiles. Most lay their eggs on land. The hatchlings must get to the ocean on their own.

27. Ocean Vertebrates • Vertebrates, like the dugong, have backbones. This animal is a mammal and must breathe air to survive like dolphins and whales.

28. Ocean Vertebrates • Vertebrates have backbones. Many are carnivores. Seahorses are not really horses.

29. Pollution in the Ocean • Cutting the plastic six-pack rings saves sea life from getting caught in them.  If trash is not put in the right place, it can find its way to the ocean, where it is harmful to all sea life. 

30. Coral reefs Invertebrates • Invertebrates have no backbone. Sponges and starfish are invertebrates.

31. Ocean Invertebrates • Crabs are crustaceans and clams are mollusks. Both are invertebrates. Crabs spend most of their lives on land near the ocean.

32. BBC resources • http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/blueplanet/blue/flash/main_game.shtml journey to the deep • http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/blueplanet/alien/teaser.shtml Under pressure – who can survive in the deep? • http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/blueplanet/webs/flash/teaser.shtml Friend or foe?

33. Ocean food chain questions • What animal is at the top of the chain? • Which is at the bottom? • Who eats smaller fish?

34. Ocean food chain answers • What animal is at the top of the chain? • Whale/mammal • Which is at the bottom? • Phytoplankton • Who eats smaller fish? • Bigger fish.

35. Ocean interaction • Does the Arctic food chain/web depend on the ocean? • See http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/food/arctic_activity.html to do this interactive

36. Ocean food web The ocean food web includes land animals and birds that eat producers and lower level consumers that live in the ocean.

37. Ocean food web questions Which animal is at the top of the food web? What do phytoplankton need to survive?

38. Ocean food web answers Which animal is at the top of the food web? Fox What do phytoplankton need to survive? Sun, air, water, nutrients

39. Ocean food web questions If many salmon die from over fishing, what will happen to the zooplankton and why? What will happen to the puffins and why?

40. Ocean food web questions If many salmon die from over fishing, the zooplankton will increase. cephalopods and sand lances will have more to eat. The puffins will have less salmon to eat and will eat more cephalopods and sand lances.

41. Ocean pollution in Alaska Mercury , a toxic chemical, is released into the air from burning coal. What is a small amount in the krill that eat it accumulates and concentrates in the fish further up the food chain. Finally people eat the albacore, halibut, etc where it is the most concentrated. They become ill because mercury can affect the nervous, immune and reproductive systems. It can damage unborn babies. Even though Alaska produces little mercury, toxic levels in some fish because mercury travels through the atmosphere and oceans.

42. Coral reefs • Coral reefs are an amazing ecosystems and can be thought of as the rainforests of the sea Their great biological diversity of thousands of species make them the most complex, populated and productive of marine ecosystem.

43. Internet Resources • http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/science_up_close/609/deploy/interface.html explore a coral reef

44. Internet Resources • Check out this interactive at • http://www.eduplace.com/kids/hmsc/activities/simulations/gr1/unitb.html

45. How ocean currents work • Water varies in density because of temperature and salinity (how much salt is dissolved in sea water). • Saltier water is more dense than less salty water • Cold water is more dense than warm water.

46. How ocean currents work • Denser water tends to sink, while less dense water tends to rise so cold-water currents move sinking cold water from the poles toward the equator. • Warm-water currents travel from the equator along the surface, toward the poles to replace the sinking cold water.

47. Ocean currentsNorthern hemisphere • Red is warmer water, blue is colder from the North Pole.

48. Gulf Stream • The Gulf Stream moves through the Gulf of Mexico, past the east coast of the US and over to Northern Europe. Without the strong, warm Gulf Stream, England and other places in Europe would be as cold as Canada.

49. Gulf Stream • Ben Franklin investigated the Gulf Stream. "This Stream is probably generated by the accumulation of water on the eastern coast of America between the tropics, by the trade winds that constantly blow there . . ." • He figured out it slowed as it flowed north, but stayed warmer than the rest of the North Atlantic. 

50. Internet resources • http://www.k12science.org/curriculum/gulfstream/index.shtmlGulf Stream Voyage -online multidisciplinary project using real time data and primary sources.