Teaching Resources
Teaching environmental issues in your classroom is a critical component of providing your students a Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience. Discover a wealth Chesapeake Bay related books, multimedia, curriculum guides, individual lesson plans and online data sources.
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> climate change NOAA Estuaries 101 Middle School Curriculum - Activity 3: Water Going Up, Water Going Down
In this activity, students will examine the effects of tides on estuaries, and look at real data to understand the effect on dissolved oxygen levels before and after a mouth closure. They will learn that both lunar tides and wind-driven seiches affect water levels in estuaries, that the movement of sediment at the mouth of an estuary will either open or close the
estuary’s access to its lake or ocean, and that tides vary throughout the day from location to location. Students will also understand that lack of tidal flushing can cause water conditions in a lagoon to deteriorate and potentially harm aquatic life inside the estuary, that if an estuary mouth is unable to open naturally it is sometimes necessary to open the mouth artificially by dredging, that there is a distinction between global sea level trends and local sea level trends, and that sea levels provide an important key to understanding the impact of climate change on estuaries.
Subject(s):
Mathematics, Science
Type(s):
Curriculum Guide, Lessons and Activities, Data
Level(s):
Middle School
Aligned with the following standard(s):
National Science Education
Keywords:
climate change, tides
Understanding Sea Level Using Real Data
This curriculum guide contains five activities designed for grades 6-8 that incorporate real data from NOAA. The activities are organized as a pathway with five levels of increasing sophistication. Students first need to understand how to access and interpret sea surface height and tide data. To understand how to interpret these data, students will review and practice computing mean values. Along the way, they will learn how different factors such as storms affect tide levels and how to meaure them. The goal is for students to become experienced with these kinds of data and the tools for accessing them, so that, by the end of the module, they can continue to explore data sets driven by their own inquiry.
Subject(s):
Science, Technology
Type(s):
Curriculum Guide, Lessons and Activities
Level(s):
Middle School
Aligned with the following standard(s):
National Science Education
Keywords:
climate change, salinity
NOAA Lesson Plan: Hot, Cold, Fresh and Salty
This lesson plan was developed by NSTA master teacher Jerry D. Roth through NSTA's partnership with NOAA. This lesson aims to have student observe the effects of the layering of warm and cold water and water that is more or less saline than the normal. In this lesson, student will create saline solutions that mimic ocean salinity, are more saline than ocean water, and are less saline than ocean water, carefully pour different solutions into a basin that shows how the different solutions can model layering in the ocean, and observe that waters of different temperatures can layer according to their respective temperature, with hot water rising above colder water and that waters with different salinity will layer according to their respective salinity with more saline water being more dense than that of lower salinity.
Subject(s):
Science
Type(s):
Curriculum Guide, Lessons and Activities
Level(s):
Middle School, High School
Aligned with the following standard(s):
National Science Education
Keywords:
climate change, water testing, salinity
