This teaching activity provides a visual framework for understanding the relationship/connection between ocean gyre circulation and primary productivity. Students demonstrate their own understanding of surface circulation in ocean gyres and how it is related to broad patterns of global primary productivity by completing a schematic sea surface map and sea surface profile of the Atlantic Ocean. This simple in-class activity allows students to recognize any misconceptions they have about the relationship/connection between surface circulation and primary productivity and to correct them.

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SYNOPSIS: This lesson introduces students to the effects of climate change on animals and their habitats.

SCIENTIST NOTES: This lesson allows students to understand what habitat means and how organisms interact within their range. Students would also be able to classify animals into different habitats, explore the impact of climate change on biodiversity in different ecosystems, and proffer ways to reduce these impacts. All the accompanying materials in the lesson are well-sourced, and this lesson has passed our science credibility review.

POSITIVES:
-This lesson opens up a conversation to discuss climate change through the topics of animals, which younger students can understand.
-This lesson allows students to practice using their agency and voice to make a change in their world.
-This lesson could be extended into a larger research project on specific animals and their habitats.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-Students may need to review the vocabulary term habitat.
-Students may benefit from a cause and effect lesson prior to this lesson.
-A lesson on observational drawings and analyzing photography could be beneficial for some learners.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-The observation and chart assignments are naturally differentiated due to the inclusion of drawings and/or words. Students can draw or write depending on their level.
-Vocabulary word cards could be used for students who need assistance with vocabulary comprehension.
-Student groups/partners could be picked based on ability level or mixed ability level depending on the purpose of instruction.
-Students could complete the drawings or letters in a digital format as well.
-These articles could be utilized to expand the non-fiction article reading component for students who are able:
-How Does Climate Change Affect the Ocean?
-Learning about Climate from Oceans

This lesson explores El NiÃo by looking at sea surface temperature, sea surface height, and wind vectors in order to seek out any correlations there may be among these three variables using the My NASA Data Live Access Server. The lesson guides the students through data representing the strong El NiÃo from 1997 to 1998. In this way, students will model the methods of researchers who bring their expertise to study integrated science questions.

400 million tons of plastic is produced every year, 36% of which is designed for single use or packaging. Of that number, only 9% is recycled. It’s fair to say that plastics are everywhere, including the ocean. In fact, approximately 13 million tons of plastic enters oceanic currents annually. Plastic has become a pillar of modern life. It’s going to take a deep, transformational change in humanity’s consciousness and activities regarding the ocean to break the plastic pattern.

We believe this is possible! But we need your help. By relating socio-economic and scientific concepts such as watershed and ocean currents, food chain interactions, and the greenhouse gas effect, youth will learn the history of plastic, how it transformed our consumer habits, how it harms ocean health, exacerbates the current climate crisis, and how they can protect our ocean from further plastic pollution and restore the ecosystems already affected.

Through this education kit’s activities, students will be given the knowledge, tools, and skills to break their plastic pattern and become leaders of change – and this all starts in your classroom.

This video highlights research conducted at Woods Hole on how heat absorbed by the ocean and changes of ocean chemistry from human activities could lead to a tipping point for marine life and ecosystems. Includes ice bath experiment that models the tipping point of Arctic sea ice.

In this unit, students will explore how global climate change impacts marine ecosystems (especially kelp forests and coral reefs) and the survival and migration patterns of species within marine ecosystems. Students will examine how marine resources and fisheries upon which humans depend (especially marginalized and vulnerable human populations) are being affected by ocean warming and what we can learn from Indigenous peoples on how to mitigate the effects of ocean warming. Lastly, students will learn about innovative solutions to addressing the impacts of ocean warming and propose their own solution to the problem.

Students will understand how ocean warming can cause certain weather patterns, as well as an increase in frequency and intensity of weather phenomena.

This page is part of NASA's Earth Observatory website. It features text and a scientific illustration to describe how the ocean interacts with the atmosphere, physically exchanging heat, water, and momentum. It also includes links to related data sets, other ocean fact sheets, and relevant satellite missions.

This video introduces phytoplankton - the base of the marine food web, the source of half of the oxygen on Earth, and an important remover of CO2 from the atmosphere. The video also explains how satellites are used to monitor phytoplankton and how warming waters and acidification negatively affect phytoplankton.

Seit mehreren Jahren steigt das Interesse an der Algenkultivierung in Europa. Makroalgen wie die S. Latissima gelten als eine attraktive, nachhaltige und zukunftsfähige Ressource, welche vielfältig verwendet werden können. Zudem mindern sie die ökologischen Auswirkungen des Klimawandels. Die Kultivierung der Algen und die ökologische Umwelt unterliegen einer reziproken Wechselwirkung. Ob in Zukunft eine Kultivierung im großen Maßstab in Europa stattfinden wird, hängt von potenziellen Anbauflächen und den sich durch den Klimawandel verändernden Einflussfaktoren ab. Die Forschung und Kultivierung der Algen in Europa stecken aktuell noch in den Kinderschuhen und benötigen weitere Forschungen und Erfahrungen.

This unit allows students to investigate past changes in Earth's climate. Students first explore relationships in climate data such as temperature, solar radiation, carbon dioxide, and biodiversity. They then investigate solar radiation in more depth to learn about changes over time such as seasonal shifts. Students then learn about mechanisms for exploring past changes in Earth's climate such as ice cores, tree rings, fossil records, etc. Finally, students tie all these together by considering the feedbacks throughout the Earth system and reviewing an article on a past mass extinction event.

This activity orally tests students understanding of the links between ocean processes and global climate change. It is set up as a debate with students serving as the science experts and volunteer faculty serving as the opposition team.

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This lesson guides a student inquiry into properties of the ocean's carbonate buffer system, and how changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels may affect ocean pH and biological organisms that depend on calcification.

Through this lesson, students in 3rd-5th grade will understand how the human history of a local creek (Whatcom Creek in this example) affects the health of salmon populations. This lesson is an active way to engage students in graphing through the use of models and uses critical thinking to understand implications of human actions in the past and in the future.

Echoes of Ecological Wars

Short Description:
The essays here contribute to developing and deepening an understanding of the ecological challenges ravaging Nigeria, Africa and our world today. They illustrate the global nature of these terrors. These essays are not meant just to enable for coffee table chatter: they are intended as calls to action, as a means of encouraging others facing similar threats to share their experiences.

Long Description:
Set out in seven sections, this book of 54 essays deals with deep ecological changes taking place primarily in Nigeria but with clear linkages to changes elsewhere in the world. The essays are laid out with an undergird of concerns that characterise the author’s approach to human rights and environmental justice advocacy. The first section rightly presents broad spectrum ecological wars manifesting through disappearing trees, spreading desertification, floods, gas flaring and false climate solutions.

The second section zeroes in on the different types of violence that pervade the oil fields of the Niger Delta and draws out the divisive power of crude oil by holding up Sudan as a country divided by oil and which has created a myriad of fissures in Nigeria. The exploitation of crude oil sucks not just the crude, it also sucks the dignity of workers that must work at the most polluting fronts.

Section three underscores the need for strict regulation of the fossil fuels sector and shows that voluntary transparency templates adopted by transnational oil companies are mere foils to fool the gullible and are exercises in futility as the profit driven corporations would do anything to ensure that their balance sheets please their top guns and shareholders. The fourth section builds up with examples of gross environmental misbehaviours that leave sorrow and blood in a diversity of communities ranging from Chile to Brazil and the United States of America.

Section five of the book is like a wedge in between layers of ecological disasters and extractive opacity. It takes a look at the socio-political malaise of Nigeria, closing with an acerbic look at crude-propelled despotism and philanthropic tokens erected as payment for indulgence or as some sort of pollution offsets.

The closing sections provide excellent analyses of the gaps and contortions in the regulatory regimes in Nigeria. It would be surprising if these were not met with resistance on the ground.

These essays provide insights into the background to the horrific ecological manifestations that dot the Nigerian environment and the ecological cancers spreading in the world. They underscore the fact there are no one-issue struggles. Working in a context where analyses of ecological matters is not the norm, decades of consistent environmental activism has placed the writer in good stead to unlock the webs that promote these scandalous realities.

Word Count: 80349

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

This video segment adapted from NOVA follows the clean-up effort after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska. Also featured is a marsh where an oil spill occurred 20 years earlier; analysis suggests that environmental damage may last for decades.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Isoprene is the most abundantly produced biogenic volatile organic compound (BVOC) on earth.,with annual global emissions rivaling those of methane. Unfortunately, surprisingly little is known about how isoprene is degraded in the environment. A recent study reveals a new set of bacteria that can metabolize isoprene. Researchers used DNA isotope probing to study microbes that degrade isoprene derived from oil palm trees. Among the new genera they discovered were Novosphingobium, Pelomonas, Rhodoblastus, Sphingomonas and Zoogloea. Metagenomic analysis further demonstrated that oil palm soil harboured more and more-diverse isoprene-degrading bacteria than leaves. That finding suggests that oil palm soils could be a bigger sink for isoprene than previously thought. Understanding the distribution and identity of isoprene degraders in the environment is crucial. to determine the extent to which microbes mitigate the effects of this abundant but neglected climate-active gas..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Help scientists recover worldwide weather observations made by Royal Navy ships around the time of World War I. These transcriptions will contribute to climate model projections and improve a database of weather extremes. Historians will use your work to track past ship movements and the stories of the people on board.

This Ology website for kids focuses on Climate Change. It includes activities, things to make, quizzes, interviews with working scientists, and more to help kids learn about Climate Change.