SCI 209 Oceanography

Question # 00040848 Posted By: helphere Updated on: 01/07/2015 06:12 AM Due on: 01/31/2015
Subject Geography Topic Environmental Geography Tutorials:
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SCI 209 Oceanography

SCI 209 Week 1 Individual Assignment NOAA Activity Part One Ocean Exploration

Navigate to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) site at http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/

Select Explore from the menu, then select Ocean Exploration listed below Oceans. Choose an explorative mission that took place at a marine sanctuary or an ecological preserve. This is the specific web site to use as a launching point for further research.
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/topics/oceans/oceanex/

Review the chosen exploration and create a 10- to 12-slide PowerPoint® presentation with following items. Online Campus students must submit a 10- to 12-slide PowerPoint® presentation with presenter notes. Be sure to include the following in your presentation.

List the basic categories of Earth’s chemical composition and physical properties, with an emphasis on how these factors relate to the ocean.

Describe at least one of the early research theories about the origins of life on Earth.

List the modern tools of research used in your chosen ocean exploration.

List the goals and objectives of the mission and how it relates to the National Ocean Service’s overarching mission.

List the areas to be explored by the mission.

What challenges did the team encounter?

Explain how the data was collected and what modern technologies were used.

Explain whether the explorative mission was it successful in its findings.

How can the information gathered from the mission benefit the field of oceanography?

The oceans cover about 71% of the Earth's surface. They are the most important natural resource that we have. All life on Earth depends on our oceans. The climate is driven partly by the circulation of the ocean's currents. The plants in the ocean produce a great deal of the oxygen that we breathe. There are countless food sources and products which come out of the ocean. The oceans also play a role in the transportation of our goods. For all of these reasons, they should be protected from pollution, overharvesting and human caused disasters.

The layers of the Earth can be classified in two different ways, by chemical composition and physical properties. Name the three layers of Earth based on chemical composition and the five layers of Earth based on physical properties. Why does the chemical composition model have three layers and the physical property model have five layers? Here is an excellent resource to use as a starting point for your research. Use this in addition to your text. Click Next to go through the presentation.

Oregon State. (n.d.). The Earth's Layers. Retrieved May 20, 2012 fromhttp://volcano.oregonstate.edu/vwdocs/vwlessons/lessons/Earths_layers/Earths_layers1.html

SCI 209 Week 2 Individual Assignment The Creation of the Ocean Floor Paper

Prepare a 700- to 1,050-word paper describing the basic theories associated with the creation of the ocean floor. Include the following in your paper:

Identify three different plate boundaries and list the outstanding features of each boundary.

List one natural event that occurs as a direct result of plate boundary interactions.

Compare and contrast ideas behind plate tectonics and the theory of continental drift. Does one idea seem more plausible than the other? If so, why? Base your findings on the natural event you identified earlier in the paper.

The Earth's magnetic field creates invisible lines of force. Throughout time, the polarity of the Earth has changed. We know this by the orientation of magnetic crystals in rocks. They are a record of what happened because as they were formed from volcanoes, the crystals oriented themselves according to the magnetic field on the Earth at the time. Not only does magnetism tell us about the Earth's history, it is also used by animals presently as a way to navigate the oceans.

· Briefly describe the current theories regarding marine animals using the Earth’s magnetic field for navigation and list at least one animal that theoretically uses this method. Do you feel the theories regarding marine animals’ use of the Earth’s magnetic field for navigation are accurate? Why do you feel this way? How could this ability benefit humans?

Define lithogeneous, biogenous, hydrogenous, and cosmogenous sediments. Why do you think it is important to be able to differentiate between these?

SCI 209 Week 3 Individual Assignment Seawater Paper

Prepare a 700- to 1,050-word paper in which you describe the chemical properties of water, specifically seawater.

Research and choose two different methods that are currently being used to convert seawater to drinkable water. Include the following in your paper:

Describe the chemical and physical properties of seawater.

Describe two different methods used to convert seawater into drinkable water.

List a county or region in which this method of conversion is currently in use.
Identify the benefits and potential hazards of converting seawater to drinkable water.

SCI 209 Week 3 Learning Team Assignment NOAA Activity Part Two Marine Pollution

Collaborate: As a team, review each team member’s Week One NOAA Activity Part One: Ocean Exploration mission and findings.

Select one team member’s mission that specifically relates to issues from marine pollution to use as the foundation for this assignment.

Select an environmental agency that could directly benefit from the research conducted in the mission.

Create a 10- to 12-slide PowerPoint® presentation that includes the following items. Online Campus students must submit a 10- to 12-slide PowerPoint® presentation with presenter notes. Be sure to include the following in your presentation.

A brief description of the chosen environmental group and their mission statement

A brief description of the type of marine pollution addressed in the mission

Which region the pollution is prevalent

How the pollution is affecting the surrounding ecosystem

What measures can be taken to avoid this type of pollution in the future

How the findings from the mission can aid the environmental group in reducing reoccurring occurrences of this form of pollution

Include any references as needed

What happens to the plastic that we throw away? I know for sure that it does not all end up in landfills. Some of it ends up in our oceans. I know that there is a great deal of trash floating out there in our oceans because I saw it. When I was on Midway Atoll, an isolated island on the northwest Hawaiian archipelago, I saw thousands of pounds of plastic trash and netting washed up on the shores. I also saw that the birds had eaten it as they were trying to fish.

What are four natural processes of decreasing seawater salinity and two natural processes of increasing seawater salinity? Describe the process. More information on this topic can be found in Chapter 4 of your text.

SCI 209 Week 4 Individual Assignment Natural Ocean Disasters Paper

Prepare a 700- to 1,050-word paper in which you explain the relationship between the ocean and the shoreline. Select and describe a naturally occurring ocean disaster that results from the relationship between weather and climate. Include the following in your paper:

A minimum of one reference is required.
What caused the natural event?
Would the effects of this event be any different if it occurred at a high or low tide? If so how?
How does this event change the wave action of the ocean?
Which ocean currents (deep and surface) pass near or through the disaster impact area?
Is the disaster affected by surface or deep ocean currents? If so, how?

SCI 209 Week 4 Learning Team Assignment Outline

Begin working on the final Week Five assignment, NOAA Activity Final Section: Marine Adaptations.

Create an outline of your presentation topics. This may be completed in Microsoft Word or in the Outline view inside of PowerPoint.

Waves which are mainly caused by wind travel in little circles or orbs. Waves decrease in velocity as they enter the shore. The top of the wave is called a crest and the bottom is called a trough. The wave crest which will break as it enters the shore. You will view that in this week's animation. Surface waves should not be confused with Tsunamis or tidal waves. Those are caused by the energy of Earthquakes or other natural disasters. They are massive amounts of water moving out in every direction.

Watch the animation, Ocean Circulation, located in your Week Four area of your Materials section. What is the pattern of circulation in the four major ocean basins? What are the main surface circulation patterns in one of the following oceans: Antarctic, Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific? To which ocean are you closest? How do these patterns affect your area? This web site is a good starting point for your research into this topic.

SCI 209 Week 5 Individual Assignment The Flow of Energy

Create a diagram, chart, or illustration in which you depict the flow of energy in marine ecosystems. You may use either a web format in which food chains are included or a biomass pyramid format. The assignment should include the following:

Title Page
Diagram, chart, or illustration of a web format or biomass pyramid
Description of primary productivity
Description of a method used to measure the amount of primary productivity
Description of how primary productivity affects the color of the ocean
List of the factors that cause regional primary productivity to vary among polar, tropical, and temperate oceans

Description of how the selected web or biomass is affected by overfishing

SCI 209 Week 5 Learning Team Assignment NOAA Activity Final Section Marine Adaptations

Review the Week Three team assignment, NOAA Activity Part Two: Marine Pollution. Please use the same ocean explorative mission you used in the Week Three assignment.

Prepare 20-25 slides (please add the 10-12 slides from the Week Three assignment to this PowerPoint® presentation to reach the 20-25 slide requirement).

Include the following information and address the following questions in your final presentation:

Include detailed presenter notes.

What life exists in your chosen region? List the top 10 prevalent marine organisms from your chosen region.

Select a marine organism from the region and discuss its adaptation to the environment due to natural circumstances or pollution.

Discuss its relationship to the other organisms that live in the same food chain.

Include future adaptations

Select the same animal as you did earlier in this assignment or another animal from the same region and hypothesize how it may need to adapt in the future due to natural circumstances or pollution.

How do the currents and tides affect your selected animal?

What are the geological features of the selected region where your organism dwells?

There are several properties unique to water. Viscosity is the internal resistance to flow. As discussed in Chapter 12 (Trujilo and Thurman, 2008), viscosity changes as temperature and salinity change. Organisms must have extensions or other appendages in order to stay afloat. This is even more important when viscosity is lower in warmer waters. Another adaptation to overcome velocity is streamlining. This is when organisms have a smaller front and tapered back section to move more freely through water. An example of this is the dolphin. Another properly of water is transparency. It's what allows sunlight to penetrate very deep. This is especially true in the tropics where the water is more nutrient poor. The fewer dissolved nutrients in the water, the deeper light can penetrate. This presents a problem for the organisms which live in sunlit waters. They have to avoid being eaten by predators and want to be able to stalk their prey without being detected. In this discussion, you will describe ways in which they do that. Be sure to review Chapter 12 and Chapter 14 prior to discussing these adaptations.

Option 1

Water has a high transparency. What are at least two methods organisms use to hide from predators in the transparent ocean environment?

Option 2

In the benthic environment, there are so many different kinds of habitats including rocks, sand, coral reefs, sea grass beds, mud flats, etc. What are at least two methods organisms use to hide from predators in the benthic environment? Provide one example of specific organism’s hiding mechanism.

What is primary productivity? How is it measured? What are some things that may affect primary productivity? The interesting aspect of this discussion will be to look at thermal images of productivity in the oceans. I am including a couple of links as starting points for your research. When visiting the first web site, go to the Net Primary Productivity section. There you can download and watch animations which will show you how the productivity changes throughout the seasons.

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