This illustrated essay from the NOVA Web site answers questions about irregularities in the tides.

In this exercise, students use online data, spreadsheets, and graphs to analyze tidal fluctuations at the Battery in New York. They will be asked to examine and compare the observed and predicted tides, and then make their own predictions.

In this video from an expedition to the Bahamas, Jonathan encounters dozens of Lemon sharks while trying to film a Tiger shark. But finally a Tiger shark arrives and you won‰ŰŞt believe the incredible encounter Jonathan has with this enormous, hungry animal. Please see the accompanying study guide for educational objectives and discussion points.

This role-playing activity is based on the Marine Reserves process at the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary and explores the complex decision-making process for establishing marine protected areas and resolving resource management issues.

This resource presents a collection of essays developed from the author’s experience teaching the course Fluid Dynamics of the Atmosphere and Ocean, offered to graduate students entering the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography. The collection includes the following three essays:
Essay 1: Lagrangian and Eulerian Representations of Fluid Flow (revised and expanded in 2024)

Part 1: Kinematics and the Equations of Motion
Part 2: Advection of Parcels and Fields

Essay 2: Dimensional Analysis of Models and Data Sets: Similarity Solutions and Scaling Analysis
Essay 3: A Coriolis Tutorial (revised and expanded in 2023)

Part 1: The Coriolis Force, Inertial and Geostrophic Motion
Part 2: A Rotating Shallow Water Model and Geostrophic Adjustment
Part 3: Beta Effects and Western Propagation
Part 4: Wind-Driven Ocean Circulation and the Sverdrup Relation
Part 5: On the Seasonally-Varying Circulation of the Arabian Sea

The goal of this resource is to help each student master the concepts and mathematical tools that make up the foundation of classical and geophysical fluid dynamics. These essays treat these topics in considerably greater depth than a comprehensive fluids textbook can afford, and they are accompanied by data files (MATLAB® and Fortran) to allow some application and experimentation. They should be suitable for self-study.

This satellite image shows the eddy/cyclone pair discussed in the exercise.

Image provided by; Lawrence J. Rouse, Earth Scan Laboratory, Louisiana State University

Provenance: Lauren Sahl, Maine Maritime Academy
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.

In this activity students examine a map of geopotential anomaly to determine ocean current patterns. They then examine particle beam attenuation data to identify patterns in the locations of intermediate nepheloid layers over the continental slope. Finally, they are asked to describe the processes that account for those patterns.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

This lesson applies the science and math of the rotation of a sphere to water and wind movements on Earth. Students are introduced to convection, the Trade Winds and the Coriolis Force. Using an online visualizer, students generate trajectories and then analyze course patterns and latitudinal changes in strength. Note that this is lesson two of five on the Ocean Motion website. Each lesson investigates ocean surface circulation using satellite and model data and can be done independently. See Related URL's for links to the Ocean Motion Website that provide science background information, data resources, teacher material, student guides and a lesson matrix.

Part 1

The SAGUARO Exploring GIS Investigations for Earth Science curriculum requries the use of ESRI's ArcView GIS software version 3.0 for Macintosh or 3.2 and higher for PC.
Use ArcGIS and data files from the SAGUARO Project's (http://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/help/projects/supported-data-types-and-items.htm) Exploring Tropical Cyclones investigations. After the students are introduced to the program they are asked to determine what criteria are required for the formation of tropical cyclones.
Exploring Tropical Cyclones Unit 1 has a great deal of data for the students to use. The data is presented as layers on a world map. Different features can be turned on and off at will, and layers can be brought in from other units if desired.

Features they can work with are:

August SST
February SST
tropical cyclone tracks
locations of tropical cyclone formation for Jun-Sep
locations of tropical cyclone formation for Dec-Mar

Part 2

Students are divided into small groups (3-4 students works well) where they compare their findings (including what evidence they used) with the findings of the other group members. Each group is then asked to determine the threshold temperature for tropical cyclone formation as well as to calculate the area of the ocean that has SST equal to or above this threshold temperature (you can have them calculate this for each season, or as a total area including both February and August data).

Part 3

Class discussion of what they have found so far. Introduce them to model predictions of SST for different atmospheric CO2 levels. Propose a 2 degree C increase in tropical SST and ask what they think that will mean. What other factors might influence the formation of tropical cyclones?

Part 4

Assign an article or two (ideally a published peer reviewed article - to introduce them to this type of scientific writing - that is if you can find one that you consider appropriate for your students) that introduces them to other factors required for tropical cyclone formation and predictions of how climate change might affect them. For example an article that discusses the role of wind speed near the surface of the ocean, or vertical wind shear, or one that shows that the threshold temperature is actually predicted to increase by the same magnitude as the SST increase.
Have them write a report that summaries the criteria for cyclogenesis as well as explaining how they would go about predicting where tropical cyclones will form as a result of an increased SST. They do not need to perform all of the tests they propose! They should state what sort of information they would like to obtain and why.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

Millions of fish eggs from the Caribbean get stuck in the gulf stream every year and drift thousands of miles north where they hatch. Unfortunately, when winter comes, the baby fish will die. In this video, Jonathan joins the New England Aquarium Dive Club on a tropical fish rescue in Rhode Island where they catch some of these fish in the fall before water temperatures plummet. The fish go to the New England Aquarium‰ŰŞs exhibits. Please see the accompanying study guide for educational objectives and discussion points.

This course describes the large-scale circulation systems of the tropical atmosphere and analyses the dynamics of such systems. Topics include: Radiative-convective equilibrium; the Hadley and walker circulation; monsoons; tropical boundary layers; theory of the response of the tropical atmosphere to localized sea-surface temperature anomalies; intraseasonal oscillations; equatorial waves; El Niño/Southern Oscillation; easterly waves; and tropical cyclones.

An inquiry approach to using the celerity (=velocity) of a tsunami to measure the depth of the ocean along its path. Tsunami are shallow-water waves, because their wavelengths are so long relative to ocean depth. Shallow-water wave celerity depends on ocean depth. Students reason this out. They then determine the distance of the path of the tsunami from the epicenter of the 1964 Alaska Good Friday earthquake tsunami to various locations, use tsunami arrival times to calculate the velocity, and re-arrange the shallow-water celerity equation to calculate depth. Students evaluate the geographic distribution of water depths.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

This course presents the phenomena, theory, and modeling of turbulence in the Earth’s oceans and atmosphere. The scope ranges from centimeter to planetary scale motions. The regimes of turbulence include homogeneous isotropic three dimensional turbulence, convection, boundary layer turbulence, internal waves, two dimensional turbulence, quasi-geostrophic turbulence, and macrotrubulence in the ocean and atmosphere.

This course presents the phenomena, theory, and modeling of turbulence in the Earth’s oceans and atmosphere. The scope ranges from centimeter to planetary scale motions. The regimes of turbulence include homogeneous isotropic three dimensional turbulence, convection, quasi-geostrophic turbulence, shallow water turbulence, baroclinic turbulence, macroturbulence in the ocean and atmosphere.

Turbulent flows, with emphasis on engineering methods. Governing equations for momentum, energy, and species transfer.
Turbulence: its production, dissipation, and scaling laws. Reynolds averaged equations for momentum, energy, and species transfer. Simple closure approaches for free and bounded turbulent shear flows. Applications to jets, pipe and channel flows, boundary layers, buoyant plumes and thermals, and Taylor dispersion, etc., including heat and species transport as well as flow fields. Introduction to more complex closure schemes, including the k-epsilon, and statistical methods in turbulence.

This narrated slideshow describes the impact of sea level rise on Tuvalu, one of the low-lying island nations in the South Pacific. As the frequency and intensity of floods and cyclones increases, the island is shrinking and saltwater intrusion is affecting local food production on the plantations. As a result, many residents are moving off the island to New Zealand, where they face major cultural changes.

The Ocean Wise Howe Sound Education Kit Is available in multiple grade editions, all in French and English and include both a student work book and teacher accompanying guidebook. Each kit features several lessons on the unique UNESCO heritage site of the Howe Sound environment.

Átl’ḵa7tsem/Txwnéwu7ts/ Howe Sound is a coastal fjord ecosystem in the Salish Sea. It is a vital area to First Nation communities, providing natural resources that allowed Indigenous peoples to thrive for generations before colonization. Following colonization and years of destructive human activity, such as industrial and coastal development, efforts are currently underway by government, industry groups, and local communities to transition the Sound’s marine ecosystem from crisis to recovery. Indigenous communities, in particular, are working hard to restore life and traditional practices for generations to come.

Using Átl’ḵa7tsem/ Txwnéwu7ts/ Howe Sound as a case study, students can recognize how ecosystems, species, human impact, and climate change are interconnected. This work is essential for students to make informed decisions as the future stewards of our planet.

An interactive reference work on the UN Sustainable Development Goals with short introductions to the goals, the official translations and numbering of the 17 goals and the 169 underlying targets, zoom in / zoom out at goal or target level, powerful search function, and "deep" hyperlinks to the UN website about the goals.Compact and online available interactive reference work that can be useful in all kinds of learning activities related to the SDGs.Currently available in English, Spanish, French and Dutch.Free to use online, but also to download and "embed" in other websites (HTML5); the source code is also freely available (MMAP).

An interactive reference work on the UN Sustainable Development Goals with short introductions to the goals, the official translations and numbering of the 17 goals and the 169 underlying targets, zoom in / zoom out at goal or target level, powerful search function, and "deep" hyperlinks to the UN website about the goals.Compact and online available interactive reference work that can be useful in all kinds of learning activities related to the SDGs.Currently available in English, Spanish, French and Dutch.Free to use online, but also to download and "embed" in other websites (HTML5); the source code is also freely available (MMAP).

This classroom activity, which is structured as a series of mini-research projects, helps students understand how technological advances have aided the exploration of Antarctica. The printable handout includes a set of 10 research topics in three categories, explorers, Antarctica today, and technological advances for you to assign to small student teams.

This module contains five activities, in increasing complexity, that focus on understanding how to interpret and manipulate sea level data, using real data from NOAA. Students first need to understand how to access and interpret sea surface height and tide data. To understand how to interpret these data, students will review and practice computing mean values. Along the way, they will learn how different factors, such as storms, affect tide levels and how to measure them. The goal is for students to become experienced with these kinds of data and the tools for accessing them so that, by the end of the module, they can continue to explore data sets driven by their own inquiry.