Teaching Climate

This Changing Planet video documents scientists' concerns regarding how melting Arctic sea ice will increase the amount of fresh water in the Beaufort Gyre, which could spill out into the Atlantic and cause major climate shifts in North America and Western Europe. The video includes interviews with scientists and a look at the basics of how scientists measure salinity in the ocean and how ocean circulation works in the Arctic.

This activity covers the role that the oceans may play in climate change and how climate change may affect the oceans. It is lesson 8 in a nine-lesson module Visualizing and Understanding the Science of Climate Change.

In this activity, students connect art and science by creating a drawing and conceptual model of the thermohaline circulation. Students get to create drawings to understand how water moves in the ocean and the impacts of that movement.

This lesson provides a demonstration and lesson focused on ocean currents. The demonstration of how cold water and warm water interact is a strong learning tool for the topic.

This audio slideshow/video describes the Greenland ice sheet and the difficulties in getting scientific measurements at the interface between the ice and the ocean. It features the work of a researcher from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute researcher. She gives a personal account of her work on the recent increase in melting of glaciers, the challenges of working in Greenland, and the reasons why so many climate scientists are looking there for answers to questions about climate change.

This video presents a brief introduction to an alternative energy source - ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC).

In this activity, students will use hot and cold water to see how fluids at different temperatures move around in convection currents.

This video introduces viewers to oceanic thermohaline circulation - the system of global ocean currents that cycle warm and cold water across the planet.

In this activity, students examine climate variability in the North Atlantic associated with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NOA) in a case study format.

This video segment uses data-based visual NOAA representations to trace the path of surface ocean currents around the globe and explore their role in creating climate zones. Ocean surface currents have a major impact on regional climate around the world, bringing coastal fog to San Francisco and comfortable temperatures to the British Isles.