Hydrosphere
El Nino’s Effect On Florida
So we just finished our El Nino project and what do I see on the front page of the Orlando Sentinel Tuesday morning?
Click the image to read the article.
Speaking of El Nino projects, I’m still working on grading all of them; please be patient. I should have all the grades done by Monday. I look through them [...]
Chapter Challenge
Chapter Challenges are an important component of your studies in Earth Science. These long term projects establish your team as researchers or investigators and set you off on a mission to help solve a problem in your community.
Your first Chapter Challenge is this:
Leaders in your community want to know if an El Nino event could [...]
Massive 8.3 Ocean Earthquake
Today’s South Pacific earthquake is an example of Earth’s interacting spheres. The heat from within the Earth powered the magnitude 8.3 quake whose epicenter was 21 miles below the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The shifting of Earth’s crust resulted in a tsunami killing 23 people on surrounding islands.
Here’s an excerpt from Discovery News about [...]
Waves From Bill
I was sitting at the table Saturday morning having breakfast with my wife, in the background the weather channel was talking about the waves that we could expect from hurricane Bill, then close to 1,000 miles away off the coast of Virginia. Hard to imagine that something that far away could have a significant affect [...]
How are you connected to the ocean?
Take two breaths.
One came from the ocean.
It’s true! Roughly half of the oxygen we breathe is produced by phytoplankton, tiny single-celled plants that live in the sea. That fact alone means that you – and all life on Earth – depend on the ocean for survival every minute of every day. In fact, no matter [...]
El Nino
Here is some excellent information on El Nino. Click on the image below.
I decided to do a quick recap of our discussions about El Nino (actually this includes today and tomorrow). This might help with your notes.
Ocean circulation and how it changes during El Nino.
Factors that influence currents: winds, land masses, Coriolis effect
Normal non-El Nino [...]
Ocean Studies
We took a very different route towards learning this time. We started with a simple “I Wonder” question “I wonder what causes ocean circulation?”. No introduction from the teacher, no movies, no textbooks, no experiments, not even the internet, just students discussing their ideas.
Then we combined ideas from all the classes, asked a few questions [...]
Discussions