Ocean Circulation

Petra Dekens, San Francisco State University

This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Peer Reviewed Teaching Activities collection. (view details)

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Scientific Accuracy
Alignment of Learning Goals, Activities, and Assessments
Pedagogic Effectiveness
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Initial Publication Date: June 9, 2013 | Reviewed: July 21, 2015 (see revision history: 2 events)

Summary

In this lab students explore data for examining both surface and deep ocean circulation. It is done in a lab setting and usually takes ~2.5 hours.

Oceanography | College Lower (13-14)

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Context

Audience

Undergraduate general education course in oceanography. Most students are freshmen or sophomores and are not science majors. There are no per-requisites for the course.

Skills and concepts that students must have mastered

The lab activity is inquiry based, so little prior knowledge is required. The lab is done in small section with graduate student TA's before ocean circulation in class. However, by the time this topic is covered we have already discussed density.

How the activity is situated in the course

This is a stand-along exercise that is done before ocean circulation is covered in class.

Goals

Content/concepts goals for this activity

density driven movement of water
reinforce connection between salinity, temperature, and density
vertical water column features (mixed layer, thermocline)
familiarity with buoy data
coriolis affect
how ocean circulation affects oil spill impacts

Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity

connecting the data to what they know about ocean characteristics
hypothesis forming
connecting salinity and temperature data to density and vertical movement

Other skills goals for this activity

calculating current speeds
plotting data in excel

Description and Teaching Materials

There are two files. One is the lab itself, and the other is a map of the Deepwater horizon spill relative to currents used to answer questions in the lab.
Lab (Microsoft Word 1.7MB Jun9 13)
Deepwater horizon spill (Acrobat (PDF) 270kB Jun9 13)