Undergraduate introductory oceanography course

Coriolis, effect, atmospheric circulation, surface ocean circulation, Ekman transport, divergence, convergence, downwelling, upwelling and primary productivity.

This activity is a summary of how the topics above are related and their implications. It is used at or near the end of the topic of ocean circulation to provide students with an opportunity to check their understanding of the above relationships and recognize misconceptions they may have and to correct them and allow instructor to verify their level of understanding of ocean circulation.

Students should be able to:

• Identify the direction of Ekman transport in a major ocean gyre.
• Distinguish divergence and convergence surface water flow from one another and describe why they happen.
• Describe the ocean circulation implications of divergence and convergence, which are downwelling and upwelling, respectively.
• Relate the ocean circulation implications to broad patterns of global primary productivity.

Synthesizing class material on coriolis effect and its impact on ocean and atmospheric circulation, geostrophic flow, eastern and western boundary currents and primary productivity.

Translating information from a map perspective to a sea surface profile perspective.

This very simple in-class activity is a way to tie up several important ideas, concepts and processes related to ocean circulation and primary productivity. There is a single front and back handout that students get. The front has a schematic map of the north and south Atlantic Ocean with simplified circulation gyres in each ocean basin and the back has a north to south profile of sea surface topography illustrating that the sea surface is not flat. Students annotate the map with arrows representing Ekman transport, compare their map with their neighbor and then they locate areas of convergence, divergence, upwelling and downwelling, and wrap up with class discussion. Using the back side, students locate regions of convergence, divergence, upwelling and downwelling again, compare the profile with neighbors and wrap up with full class discussion. Lastly, students consider the relationship between these circulation patterns and primary productivity by annotating both the map and the profile with regions of high and low productivity. See Notes to instructor (below) for detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to proceed.

• Student Handout for Ocean Gyre Circulation Activity_word doc (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 68kB May18 13)
• Student Handout for Ocean Gyre Circulation Activity_pdf (Acrobat (PDF) 102kB May18 13)
• Activity Instructions, instructor notes and answer key (Acrobat (PDF) 688kB May18 13)
• Examples of Assessment Questions (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 96kB May18 13)

See notes to instructor documents (including answer key).

One way to assess the students' understanding of the above relationships is to create a short quiz using a similar map only calling it the Pacific Ocean. Ideally, they should be able to translate these relationships to the ocean gyres of a different ocean basin. The examples of assessment questions document provides some questions to use in evaluating students' understanding in either a quiz or exam format.