Educators' Corner

Students learn what physiological, ecological, and behavioral strategies contribute to the success of reef-building corals.

Students describe and explain the two hypotheses for the frequent occurrence of deep-sea corals in the vicinity of hydrocarbon seeps. Students evaluate relevant experimental data and explain how this data may support or refute these hypotheses. Students define and contrast coincidence and causality, explain the relevance of these terms to hypotheses such as those related to deep-sea corals and hydrocarbon seeps.

To introduce students to ocean currents and the transport of marine debris, spilled oil, and other pollutants in the ocean. 

Learn how scientists collect field data by being a scientist yourself! By studying a specific ecosystem, students learn how different scientists work together, what kinds of data scientists record, and experience the scientific process through observation and data collection.

In this activity, students will be able to identify major taxa that are dominant in deep benthic communities of the Arctic Ocean. Given distribution data for major taxa in different Arctic benthic communities, students will be able to identify patterns in the distribution of these taxa and infer plausible reasons for these patterns.

This lesson investigates how sea ice is critical to the plants and animals that live in the Arctic. Students will learn key terms, including albedo, cryosphere, and forcings. They will also learn about how carbon emissions, sea ice, and food webs are interconnected.

In this activity, students will be able to identify the natural processes that produce methane, describe where methane deposits are located in the Arctic region, explain how warmer climates may affect Arctic methane deposits, explain how the release of large volumes of methane might affect Earth’s climate, and describe how methane releases may have contributed to mass extinction events in Earth’s geologic history.

Students research and write about what it means to be an ocean explorer, both modern and historic. Students describe the nature of the ocean and ocean exploration. Students meet science mentors and role models online. 

Students learn why coral reefs are important, and what possible explanations are for the phenomenon known as coral bleaching.

Students analyze maps of shipping lanes and whale sightings to devise a new shipping lane through the Stellwagon Bank National Marine Sanctuary to minimize ship strikes on whales.