Going Further

Variations

This chapter focuses on locating ocean sediment cores that contain foraminifera and shear stress indicators for the PETM. Virtual Ocean also provides a great opportunity to just explore the ocean floor topography. In addition, you can explore multiple ocean sediment cores to find additional evidence of shear stress (as an indication of changes in carbonate concentration) and other species of foraminifera.

Other Data

The Marine Geoscience Data System offers additional educational modules that use GeoMapApp. GeoMapApp is a predecessor to Virtual Ocean and it uses the same datasets. Visit educational modules for more ideas and information.

Related Case Studies

Within the EET there are several related case studies that explore the the causes and/or impacts of climate change. These lessons could be used to develop a complete unit on the topic.

Is Greenland Melting?—Explore working conditions on the Greenland Ice Sheet, measure melt area extents and rate of glacial movement with My World GIS.

Understanding Carbon Storage in Forests—Compare field collected data with results produced by a forest biomass model to understand the process and challenges scientists face when doing terrestrial carbon cycle research.

Exploring Regional Differences in Climate Change—Produce and analyze graphs to compare climate predictions among U.S. states through the year 2100.

Whither Arctic Sea Ice?—Animate thirty years of sea ice images, measure the ice extent each year, and then graph and analyze the results.

Exploring NCAR Climate Change Data Using GIS—Use ArcGIS to visualize and analyze NCAR climate change scenario.

Using NASA NEO and ImageJ to Explore the Role of Snow Cover in Shaping Climate—Use ImageJ to explore and animate satellite images of reflected short wave radiation, snow cover, and land surface temperature downloaded from the NASA Earth Observation (NEO) website. Then use NEO's Image Composite Editor (ICE) to observe, graph, and analyze the relationship between these three variables.

Envisioning Climate Change Using a Global Climate Model—Run climate modeling software to visualize how temperature and snow coverage might change over the next 100 years.

Other EET chapters that explore ocean coring include:

Exploring Seafloor Topography—Explore a timeline about how we have learned about the oceans. Construct a profile across the Atlantic Ocean and create 3-D visualizations of the seafloor.

Cool Cores Capture Climate Change—Interpret indicators of climate change recorded in sediment cores, make predictions about core profiles based on known climate change processes, and analyze cores from the Southern Ocean floor near Antarctica.