Human Impacts—Real Time Data

Summary: How is water quality inland related to water quality located downstream? Much real time or near-real-time data collected by scientists and remote sensing equipment are posted online. In this focus area, students access some of these tools to answer questions about water quality.

Concepts to teach: Water quality, real time data, inquiry, downstream

Goals: Students access and interpret water quality data in the classroom using the internet and remote sensing tools. They use the data to answer questions about how water quality inland influences water quality in Oregon’s aquatic, estuarine and marine ecosystems.

Standards:
H.3S.1, H.3S.2, H.3S.3

Specific Objectives:

1. Gain experience working with real time data.
2. Address/answer a water quality inquiry using real time data.
3. Explain how inland and coastal water quality is connected.

Activity Links and Resources:

• NOAA Estuary Education – Focusing on estuaries, these curriculum modules feature hands-on learning, experiments, field work and data explorations.
  • Tutorials for SWMP and other data graphing tools
  • South Slough buoy page
• NANOOS—Collect and interpret real time water quality data from ocean observing buoys. Some buoys are located well up the Columbia River, so students are able to conduct an inquiry to compare and contrast aquatic, estuarine and ocean water quality data.
  • Rhythms of Our Coastal Waters interactive online exhibit leads students through real-time data collection and assessment in Yaquina Bay, Newport.
• Surfrider’s Blue Water Task Force website—Search for near-real-time data of bacterial counts on beaches.
• Oregon Beach Monitoring Program—Search this DEQ site for fecal bacteria (enterococcus) counts for selected coastal recreation waters in Oregon.
• Compare StreamWebs data from different sites in the watershed and throughout Oregon.
• Using Real-time Data—This guide from Oregon Sea Grant contains links to a host of internet sites that have real-time information that will enhance tradition classroom lessons. With these resources your students can use real-time data to investigate earth systems.

Assessment:

• Students prepare a scientific lab report that describes the procedures and outcome of their investigation using real-time data.

Coastal Ecology—Recipe for an Ocean

Summary: This activity will inspire students to brainstorm the components that make up an ocean community and introduce them to the concepts of food chains, energy transfer and food webs. The second part of the activity, designed for older students, challenges them to create a food web in relation to the habitat each animal lives in to further the lesson between interconnectedness of the living community and habitats in the system. This activity is most effective when used after a field experience or at the end of an ocean unit.

Concepts to teach: Food chains and webs, community interactions, interconnectedness

Goals: Students will understand the relationships among living things and between living things and their marine environment.

Standards:
6.2L.2, 7.2L.2, 8.2P.2

Specific Objectives:

1. Students will be able to define the parts of and create a food chain from a list of organisms.
2. Students will be able to define the parts of and create a food web from a list of organisms and food chains.
3. Students will be able to describe the interdependence of a marine community in relationship to the organisms themselves and those living in different ecosystems.

Activity Links and Resources:

• Summary of Recipe for an Ocean from the Oregon Coast Aquarium
• The Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport has a variety of onsite lab classes, outreach programs, and lesson plans for Grades 6-8, including:
  • Go with the Flow —Explore biotic and abiotic factors that affect the physical distribution of organisms in tidepool communities.

Assessment:

• Included in the Recipe for an Ocean lesson.

Mitigation—Reduce Emissions

Summary: We know what factors are contributing to a change in our global climate and ocean, so what can students, parents, and schools do to help? There are actions that individuals and communities can take to help reduce the amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases that go into the atmosphere. This topic guide empowers students to take action and make a difference.

Concepts to teach:

Goals:

1. Reducing carbon emissions will make a difference to the rate and impact of climate change
2. There are personal actions everyone can take to help reduce the amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases that go into the atmosphere

Standards: NGSS Performance Expectations

• MS-ESS3-3. Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.

Specific Objectives:
Students will be able to:

1. Describe how reducing greenhouse gas emissions will reduce the rate and impacts of climate change
2. Identify and evaluate behaviors that reduce the amount of carbon humans put into the atmosphere

Activity Links and Resources:

• The bathtub model shows that turning off the tap is an important component to solving the problem of excess greenhouse gases.
• How does your behavior affect the carbon balance? Calculate your impact:
  • Carbon Calculator from the EPA
  • Carbon Footprint Calculator—a detailed tool from the International Student Carbon Footprint Challenge
• Ideas for reducing your impact on a personal level
  • What can we do to help—Suggestions from NASA’s Climate Kids
  • What you can do at Home—Suggestions from EPA (archived)
• Ideas for reducing your school’s impact
  • Cool School Challenge—The National Wildlife Federation challenges schools to become greener
  • What you can do at School – Suggestions from EPA (archived)

Assessment:

• Quantitatively assess the impact of a behavior change
• Share successful changes with others

Coastal Ecology—Riparian Areas

Summary: Much of the health of the total watershed depends on the health of the uplands and riparian areas. In the activities below, students collect and interpret data from classroom models or through field investigations to discover how physical parameters of riparian areas may affect adjacent aquatic environments.

Concepts to teach: Riparian, interconnectedness, habitat

Goals: Students practice scientific inquiry and data collection to determine relationships between riparian and aquatic environments.

Standards:
6.1P.1, 6.3S.1, 6.3S.2, 7.3S.1, 7.3S.2, 8.3S.1, 8.3S.2

Specific Objectives: Students will:

1. Conduct a classroom experiment to determine the effect of solar radiation and shade on aquatic environments.
2. Conduct a field investigation to search for patterns between the physical characteristics of riparian areas and adjacent streams.
3. Describe the influence riparian zones have on aquatic environments.

Activity Links and Resources:

• The 550-page Stream Scene curriculum is available in .pdf format on the ODFW website, and covers a variety of watershed topics.
  • The chapter Riparian Areas contains several lessons that focus on watershed health, including:
    • Made in the shade, p. 179—Students demonstrate the effect of solar radiation and the role vegetation plays in keeping streams cool.
• Salmon Watch curriculum—Lessons in Unit 2 cover field trip planning and implementation, including:
  • Introduction to Riparian Areas 2.24 – 2.34—Use this background information, data tables and graphs to see how physical parameters of streams relate to the presence or absence of aquatic macroinvertebrates and fish.
  • Riparian and Aquatic Area Survey 2.43-2.53—Protocol to explore the riparian area of a stream and identify and discuss differences in the components of the observed riparian area.

Assessment:

• Honoring our Rivers—The Honoring Our Rivers student anthology project showcases Oregon student writing and artwork focused on rivers and watersheds. From poetry to prose and fiction, from illustration to photography, students from across the state submit their work to a juried-review process and finalists appear before the public in an annual anthology and at exhibits, events and readings hosted by Honoring Our Rivers.
  • Address a local watershed issue in a piece submitted to Honoring our Rivers.

Coastal Habitats & Species—Salinity and Tides

Summary: Students learn about tides and salinity in estuaries. Based on observations of time-lapse models of tides and salinity distribution in an estuary, students make predictions about salinity changes, and use salinity data to generate graphs to explain salinity patterns in an estuary.

Concepts to teach: pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen, salinity, conductivity

Goals: Students identify several factors that determine why salinity changes are different depending on your location within the estuary.

Standards:
H.2E.1, H.3 S.1, H.3S.2, H.3S.3

Specific Objectives: Students will be able to:

1. Analyze different forms of data and synthesize information to develop a hypothesis.
2. Explain how tides and the geology of the estuary affect water circulation in an estuary.
3. Describe daily patterns of salinity changes in an estuary.

Activity Links and Resources:

• Salinity and Tides in York River – from the NOAA Estuary Education website [pdf] 
  • Consider adapting this exercise to a local Oregon estuarine environment such as South Slough NERR.
  • Compare and contrast the conclusions made about salinity in the Chesapeake Bay with salinity patterns in an Oregon estuaries
• Rhythms of Our Coastal Waters—This interactive NANOOS exhibit helps learners discover how salinity fluctuates in the Yaquina Bay estuary in Newport, OR.
  • Use real-time LOBO data to answer one or more of the four posed questions about salinity in Yaquina Bay.
• Background information and activities dealing with salinity can be found in the middle school Life in the Waters topic guide.
• Visit an estuary and measure salinity at a variety of points to generate that can be used to describe patterns and processes.
  • Measure salinity at several points along a transect perpendicular to the ocean and see to what degree the data show a gradient of inland fresh water to ocean salt water.
  • Measure salinity at the surface and at depth to determine whether a salt water wedge can be detected.
  • Measure salinity at different points in the tidal cycle.
  • If possible, compare student-collected data with existing data sets.

Assessment:

• See the Check for Understanding section in the Salinity and Tides lesson for suggestions on how to assess student learning.
• Level 5 of the Rhythms of Our Coastal Waters “tests” your LOBO abilities.