1. The TEKS
Know that climatic interactions exist among Earth, ocean, and weather systems.
8.10 (A) recognize that the Sun provides the energy that drives convection within the atmosphere and oceans, producing winds and ocean currents;

2. ENGAGE What causes the movement of air and water throughout the Earth?
Ocean Currents
What causes the movement of air and water throughout the Earth?

3. EXPLORE Fill your container with tap water.
Carefully place blue water at each end of the container using a syringe.
Observe what happens.
Record your observation on your lab sheet.
Divide your class into groups, and prepare for the activity by mixing food dye into water, pouring the water into an ice cube tray, and freezing it.2.Display a globe and have your students observe that all the oceans on Earth are connected to form one "world ocean." Ask them where they think the water would be warmer—near the equator or near the poles. Then tell students that they are going to perform an experiment to demonstrate how the colder waters nearer the poles and the warmer waters nearer the equator mix together and move to create ocean currents.3.The students in each group should fill a clear baking dish with warm tap water to represent the warm water near the equator.4.Instruct students to place one ice cube at each end of the baking dish, representing the cold water near the poles. Invite them to predict what will happen as the ice cubes melt.5.Students will observe that the cold (colored) water sinks and moves along the bottom of the baking dish toward the warmer water in the middle; the warmer water moves toward the ends of the baking dish; as the cold water begins to warm, it begins to rise.

4. EXPLAIN What did the blue water represent?
Why was the blue water placed at the far end of your container?
What did you observe?

5. TIME FOR A FOLDABLE

6. and cooler, denser (air or liquid) sinking
CONVECTION
Transfer of heat by the movement of warmer, less dense (air or liquid) rising
and cooler, denser (air or liquid) sinking

7. CONVECTION

8. CONVECTION

9. CONVECTION Moves air in the atmosphere! Moving Air = Winds
Convection in the atmosphere
is the main cause of the wind.
Where does the Energy for
Convection come from on
Earth?

10. THE SUN!!!

11. CONVECTION

12. CONVECTION
causes deep ocean currents!

13. CONVECTION
Wind over the shore changes direction because of EARTH’S UNEVEN WARMING & COOLING!

14. Hot Air is Less Dense!

15. Atmospheric Movement MOSTLY CAUSED BY: Temperature differences
Pressure differences
Coriolis Effect (due to Earth’s rotation)

16. The Coriolis effect The Coriolis effect
Is a result of Earth’s rotation
Causes moving objects to follow curved paths:
In Northern Hemisphere, curvature is to right
In Southern Hemisphere, curvature is to left
Changes with latitude:
No Coriolis effect at Equator
Maximum Coriolis effect at poles

17. The Coriolis effect on Earth
As Earth rotates, different latitudes travel at different speeds
The change in speed with latitude causes the Coriolis effect
Figure 6-9a

18. Role of the Ocean
Slowly absorbs and slowly releases heat energy helping keep Earth’s temperatures relatively stable
Oceans heat or cool the air above them and transport heat around the globe in currents.
Hurricanes form over warm ocean water, drawing their energy from the water’s heat.

19. Ocean Currents Currents large scale water movements
occur everywhere in ocean
both surface and deep
2 main types: surface currents (10%) and deep sea currents (90%)
surface currents are primarily wind driven
deep currents are density driven
other forces affecting currents
Coriolis effect
friction
gravity
thermal expansion
geologic shape of ocean basin

20. ELABORATE
1) Use the pipette to carefully put several drops of red hot water at the bottom of the container.
2) Remove the pipette and watch what happens to the red water.

21. Why is it important to study ocean currents
Why is it important to study ocean currents? How do plants, animals, and humans use ocean currents?

22. Ten Bizarre Things That Washed Up On Shore

23. EVALUATION
1) Convection currents, which affect weather and climate, are created by...
A. slow, constant tectonic movement.
B. erosion of ocean beaches.
C. mining of the seafloor.
D. the uneven heating of the Earth.

24. 1. Convection currents, which affect weather and climate, are created by...
Answer:
D. the uneven heating of the Earth.

25. 2) Water is cooler near the poles and warmer near the equator
2) Water is cooler near the poles and warmer near the equator. Movement of cooler and warmer water from these regions moderates the global climate.
Which of the following describes the movement of water between the poles and the equator?
A. tides
B. ocean currents
C. evaporation
D. gravity

26. 2. Water is cooler near the poles and warmer near the equator
2. Water is cooler near the poles and warmer near the equator. Movement of cooler and warmer water from these regions moderates the global climate. Which of the following describes the movement of water between the poles and the equator?
Answer:
B. ocean currents

27. 3. Surface ocean currents are primarily formed by _______.
A. winds
B. tides
C. aquatic organisms
D. underwater volcanoes

28. 3. Surface ocean currents are primarily formed by _______.
A. wind

29. 4. Which of the following is NOT true:
A. colder, denser water at the poles sinks below warmer water.
B. colder, denser water at the poles rises above warmer water.
C. warmer, less dense water at the equator rises above colder water.
D. saltier, denser water sinks below fresh, less dense water.

30. 4. Which of the following is NOT true:
B. colder, denser water at the poles rises above warmer water.

31. 5. What does the Coriolis Effect explain?
A. why it is hard to catch baseballs.
B. why surface winds or currents turn in one direction or another.
C. how volcanoes are formed.
D. why salt water is denser than fresh water.

32. 5. What does the Coriolis Effect explain?
B. why surface winds or currents turn in one direction or another.

33. Lost at Sea
It began Jan. 10, 1992, when a container ship, en route from Hong Kong to Tacoma, ran into a hurricane near the international dateline. The waves were so powerful that they broke some of the steel cables holding the huge containers, releasing 12 of them over the side. One that was lost held 28,800 Friendly Floatee bathtub toys, made in China for The First Years Inc. of Avon, Mass. They were red beavers, green frogs, blue turtles and, of course, yellow ducks.
We might expect that elaborate wrapping around the toys would have dragged them straight to the bottom. But they managed to escape five levels of packing, from the heavy steel containers (violent waves opened the door latches) to the plastic and paper boxes (water pulped the cardboard) before finally floating free.
It took 10 months for the first 10 Floatees to reach shore near Sitka, Alaska, having been swept along by the Subpolar Gyre, the ocean current in the Bering Sea. By then they had covered about 3,200 km and two oceanographers in Seattle, Ebbesmeyer and James Ingraham, were tracking their progress. (Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham were already studying 61,000 Nike running shoes that had fallen in the ocean two years earlier.)
A few months later another 20 toys reached Alaska. By August 1993, 400 more had been found along the shores of the Gulf of Alaska. Ingraham logged them in his OSCUR (Ocean Surface Currents Simulation), a program that calculates the course of wind and currents. Other toys, after following a circuitous route to Washington state, began arriving there in 1996.
The oceanographers predicted that some toys would drift north, get locked in Arctic ice, then eventually be released. In a few years they could move across the Pole to the Atlantic. Then where would they go? Eventually they arrived in Maine, Iceland, Newfoundland, the U.K. and Germany.
The last of the survivors continued to float, Ebbesmeyer says, “bleached and battered but still recognizable after 16 years.” Well, the manufacturer said they were designed to survive 52 dishwasher cycles.
Ebbesmeyer approaches this narrative with a cheerful buoyancy: “These high-seas drifters offer a new way of looking at the seas. Call it ‘flotsametrics.’ It’s led me to a world of beauty, order and peril I could not have imagined even after decades as a working oceanographer.” He loves his status as flotsam headquarters for data sent back by the world’s 1,000 or so dedicated beachcombers.
It’s a joyful story of discoveries he tells in his book. But he brings the reader back to Earth, and starts us thinking again about BP, when he describes the seabed slowly filling with bits of plastic that poison the fish and eventually the humans who eat them. Thousands of containers fall into the sea every year, creating an oceanic junkyard.
And the junk never disappears. These days beachcombers keep coming across flotsam antiques, like a plastic ball decorated with 40-year-old cartoon characters or Japanese glass buoys for fishing nets that haven’t been used in half a century. These relics are fascinating bits of the past, but when it comes to the fate of the oceans, perhaps beachcombers have stumbled upon the melancholy truth.
Read more:
January shipwrecked in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of China
November half had drifted north to the Bering Sea and Alaska; the other half went south to Indonesia and Australia
1995 to spent five years in the Arctic ice floes, slowly working their way through the glaciers
the duckies bobbed over the place where the Titanic had sunk
they were predicted to begin washing up onshore in New England, but only one was spotted in Maine
a couple duckies and frogs were found on the beaches of Scotland and southwest England.

34. Duckie Progress
January shipwrecked in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of China
November half had drifted north to the Bering Sea and Alaska; the other half went south to Indonesia and Australia
1995 to spent five years in the Arctic ice floes, slowly working their way through the glaciers
the duckies bobbed over the place where the Titanic had sunk
they were predicted to begin washing up onshore in New England, but only one was spotted in Maine
a couple duckies and frogs were found on the beaches of Scotland and southwest England.