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Book Chapter |
Telephones, clothing, skis, antihistamines, ballpoint pens, music cassettes, toilet seats, antifreeze, and gasoline: What do these items have in common? All are often made from oil. The United States, like other…
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Hundreds of thousands of boats and ships and the materials and supplies on them have sunk to watery graves since humans first sailed the oceans. Even today, it is common practice for humans to throw their waste into the…
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A substance’s molecular structure is responsible for its properties and governs how it interacts with other things on Earth. This Activity introduces and explores one specific property of liquid water. This sample…
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Water has many peculiar properties: high specific heat capacity, strong ability to act as a solvent, and the ability of the solid phase of water (ice) to float on its liquid phase. Many of the peculiar properties of…
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Water is one of the simplest chemical substances on Earth, and yet we must have it to live. In this Activity, you will learn how hydrogen and oxygen join and investigate some characteristics of the bond between them.…
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The characteristics of the different parts of the ocean vary depending on the region. While the coastal ocean changes rapidly and presents the largest amount of biological activity, it also shows the largest exchanges…
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Over and Under— Why Water’s Weird
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Understanding water’s molecular structure helps explain some of its characteristics. Density is the mass of an object divided by its volume. In this Activity, you will look at how heating affects the density of…
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The Tides: A Balance of Forces
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The interaction between the gravitational forces of Earth, the Moon, and the Sun causes tides. The rhythmic movement of the water associated with the tides causes successive high and low waters in the coastal areas.…
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Earth’s surface is mostly covered by water. Areas not covered by water—the continents—are surrounded by water. If land and water had the same specific heat, we would expect the land and surrounding water to heat up and…
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A wave is a disturbance that transmits energy from one location to another. In the ocean, most waves are created by the action of the wind over the surface. The interaction of the waves with the bottom near the shore…
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Water is often called the universal solvent because so many substances will dissolve in it. Why do so many substances dissolve readily in water? In this Activity, you will explore the solubility of various substances in…
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Book Chapter |
The ocean plays a fundamental role in many ways: from affecting the global climate and its variability, to phenomena such as El Niño, to the dispersal of pollutants such as oil spills. Understanding the dynamics…
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Book Chapter |
If you have ever gone swimming in an ocean, or better yet, in Great Salt Lake, Utah, you may have noticed that it was easier to float in the ocean or in Great Salt Lake than in a pool or freshwater lake. Why is this? In…
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Book Chapter |
Ocean water is not the same everywhere. In some places, the water is colder or deeper than in other places. Some parts are denser or contain differing amounts of dissolved salts than other parts. All these things affect…
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The Myth of Davy Jones’s Locker
Book Chapter |
For centuries, sailors believed that bodies buried or lost at sea did not sink to the bottom. They believed that a special depth existed between the surface and the bottom of the ocean where a body would remain…
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