peter@tmn.com August 17, 1997

This sample lesson (see below)  plan illustrates the types of lesson plans that the prospective teachers at FIU might create for their students using BATS data. Completed lesson plans would be made available to teachers around the world via the WWW.

This sample lesson plan is only an example. The format and contents of actual lesson plans would be decided by the principal investigators and prospective teachers during the course of our proposed pilot project at FIU.

Before the prospective teachers started to create their lesson plans, the principal investigators would introduce them to basic oceanographic concepts, the contents of the BATS data sets, and the methods needed to locate, access, download, and analyze the data.  Here are the types of graphs that students would create if they completed this lesson plan.

Lesson Plan

Background

Burning of fossil fuels by humans puts more carbon dioxide gas (CO₂) into our atmosphere. Atmospheric CO₂ acts like a blanket to trap heat that would otherwise escape to space. Most people agree this “ greenhouse effect” will increase the Earth’s average temperature. However, people disagree about how much the Earth will heat up, and whether the temperature change will be the same everywhere. One reason that people aren’t sure about global warming is that we don’t fully understand what happens to CO₂ once it goes up a chimney or out a car’s exhaust pipe. One question is how much CO₂ stays in the air, and how much dissolves into the ocean. If a lot of carbon dioxide ends up in the ocean, there will be less in the air, and the effects of global warming may be reduced. Temperature is one parameter  that affects how much CO₂ ocean water can hold. Let’s use some real scientific data to explore how the temperature of ocean water changes through the seasons.

Objectives

After this lab, students should be able to:

1. Locate, select, and download BATS data from the world wide web

2. Use a graph to determine the sea water temperature at different depths in the ocean.

3. Describe how the temperature of the Sargasso Sea changes with the seasons.

4. Hypothesize how changes in sea water temperature through the year might affect the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Procedure

Access BATS data (http://www.bbsr.edu/users/ctd/nisklist.html)

Select the type of BATS cruise ( BATS Core), date range (01/01/95-12/31/95), depth range (0-400 meters), and data type (temperature & depth)

Copy selected BATS data

Paste selected BATS data into Excel

Create graphs of temperature vs.. depth for each month of 1995

Questions

What was the water temperature at 100 meters depth during March, 1995?

During what month was the surface water temperature the highest?

What happened to the surface water temperature during August, 1995? Can you think of any  hypotheses to explain this phenomenon?

Vocabulary

CTD

mixed layer

thermocline