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oceans: related resources
About the Author | Activity Ideas | Article | Related Resources
Find Below: PBS Web Sites, Other Recommended Links, Recommended Books
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Voyage of the Odyssey
Travel the globe with the Ocean Alliance, now on a five-year voyage to study the health of the world's oceans. Find diaries form the crewmembers, audio, video and scientific reports online.
Savage Seas
Get information about tsunamis, hurricanes, icebergs and El Niño. Also, use the interactive games to try a wave machine, take a trip to the ocean floor, and more.
Secrets of the Ocean Realm
Learn about deep sea creatures, underwater photography, and more.
NOVA: "The Vikings"
Learn about some of the earliest oceanic voyagers and take a look at a longship.
Bill Moyers Reports: Earth on Edge
Get information about the millennium Ecosystem Assessment and learn how humans are affecting coastal ecosystems around the world.
Frontline: "A Whale of a Business"
Explore the question, "Should captive whales and dolphins be set free?"
Nature: "Humpback Whales"
Learn about whale songs, diet, anatomy, and more.
Nature: "Incredible Suckers"
Cephalopods -- see them for yourself at this Nature Web site. Travel to New Zealand to track the fabled giant squid.
Nature: "The Octopus Show"
Take the online quiz and learn how octopii are masters of disguise.
Nature: "The Secret World of Sharks and Rays"
Find out more about various shark species and learn about the new sport of shark diving.
Nature: "Sperm Whales: The Real Moby Dick"
Nature dives to watery deptsh to meet sperm whales, massive marine mammals that inhabit the world's oceans.
NOVA: "Island of the Sharks"
Travel to Costa Rica's Cocos Island, which boasts more sharks per cubic yard of water than perhaps any other place on the planet, including whitetip reef sharks, 40-foot whale sharks, and hammerheads that school by the hundreds.
NOVA: "Shark Attack!"
Find out how sharks use their six senses to hunt their prey.
The Living Edens: "Palau"
The Living Edens journeys east of India and Indonesia to observe the abundance of marine life that thrives in the waters of Palau -- an intricate city created by some of the richest coral reefs on earth.
The Living Edens: "South Georgia Island"
Travel to the most important penguin nesting and breeding area on Earth. Surrounded by glaciers and giant ice floes in the Sout Atlantic Ocean, this imposing, 106-mile expanse of ice-capped mountains is also home to bull elephant seals.
Nature: "Life at the Edge of the Sea"
This site is a vivid portrait of life -- and death -- in the tide pools and bays along Canada's rugged Pacific coast.
Kratt's Creatures: Creature Net
Read about other kids' encounters with ocean life.
recommended web sites
International Year of the Ocean
http://www.yoto98.noaa.gov/kids.htm
1998 was the International Year of the Ocean and the National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration created a site for kids with games, puzzles, quizzes, and activities for elementary school students. Topics covered include buoys, coral reefs, marine debris, Northwest salmon, marine mammals, and facts about fish. The Whale and Plover is a tale and coloring book in English and Hawaiian.
Subject: Science & Technology
More Recommended Science & Technology Links
Environment News Service
http://www.ens-newswire.com/
ENS contributors around the world cover issues and events that affect the environment such as: legislation, science and technology, public health, air quality, drinking water, oceans and marine life, land use, wildlife, forests, hazardous materials, toxics, nuclear issues, renewable energy, recycling, transportation, and environmental economics. If you want to be an environmental journalist, click on the Youth Environmental News Desk for details on submitting articles.
Subjects: Science & Technology
More Recommended Science & Technology Links
NOAA Photo Library
http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/collections.html
Special "albums" of photos related to the ocean are housed at the NOAA Photo Library. Dive into albums about undersea research, coral reefs, the NOAA fleet of ships, marine sanctuaries, America's coastlines, and fisheries. Since these images are in the public domain, as long as you credit NOAA or the specific photographer, you can download images for school projects.
Subject: Science & Technology
More Recommended Science & Technology Links
Ocean Link
http://oceanlink.island.net/
Considering a career in marine science? Check the Students in Action and learn first hand what life is like at Marine field school. The Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre provides information about marine animals and their habitat.
Subject: Social Studies; Science & Technology
More Recommended Social Studies Links
More Recommended Science & Technology Links
Ocean Planet
http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/ocean_planet.html
The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History has on online exhibit where you can tour the exhibit by topics like Sea People, Oceans in Peril, and Ocean Science. You can create your own tour or take a preplanned tour on biodiversity, women and the sea, oceans and Africa, or pollution. A special search area allows you to look for images and objects.
Subject: Science & Technology
More Recommended Science & Technology Links
Women Exploring the Oceans
http://www.womenoceanographers.org/
There are many women who choose careers in oceanography, how about you? Read interviews, view a photo gallery, and find out about jobs you might not have known existed. There is an illustrator of oceanographic data, a marine seismologist, and a chemical oceanographer. Each woman's profile includes a sample schedule of her work week and what life is like on the ship. This is an exciting career, going out to sea to investigate ocean plants, animals, geology, chemistry, and geography.
Subject: Social Studies; Science & Technology
More Recommended Social Studies Links
More Recommended Science & Technology Links
Project NOPP Drifters
http://www.drifters.doe.gov/
The National Oceanographic Partnership Program uses data from ocean drifting buoys to bring real life math skills to middle and high school students. Educational activities include tracking and charting a NOPP drifter. Click on Track a NOPP Drifter for detailed instructions of how to plot latitude and longitude, calculate speed of ocean currents, and averaging data. The plotting chart of the Atlantic Ocean, student activities and teacher keys can be downloaded in several formats. Much of the site is also available in Spanish.
Subject: Math
More Recommended Math Links
Secrets@Sea
http://www.secretsatsea.org/
Ace on the Case: Secrets@Sea is a curriculum-based adventure story with ocean-related learning activities for grade 4-7 students. The teacher's guide includes learning outcomes and extension activities. Some of the themes include marine mammals and food webs, tides, currents, and the ocean floor. A comprehensive Field Guide is available throughout the game to provide additional information about concepts and vocabulary used in the game. Navigation can be a bit confusing, but is worth pursuing. An inexpensive CD-ROM version with enhanced capabilities is available through the site. Shockwave is required for this site.
Subject: Science & Technology
More Recommended Science & Technology Links
Tidal Predictions
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/station_retrieve.shtml?type=Tide+Data
From the Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services site, you can find tidal predictions from all US coastline states. Data includes latitude, longitude, mean range, spring range, mean tide level and predictions of daily times and heights of tides for each day of the year. Use the button marked Observations for actual collected data to determine how close the predictions were. Advanced students can apply real life math skills to harmonic constants of tides.
Subject: Math
More Recommended Math Links
Andrea Doria: Tragedy and Rescue at Sea
http://www.andreadoria.org/
In July 1956, two ocean liners collided in the fog near Nantucket, Massachusetts. The Andrea Doria was rammed by the Stockholm creating a gash in the starboard side. Lifeboats couldn't be launched due to the severe list of the ship, distress signals resulted in numerous ships steering toward the crash site to pick up survivors. There were 1660 survivors and 51 casualties. The story is riveting, especially because the site is created by a survivor of the shipwreck, who was 3 at the time.
Subject: Social Studies
More Recommended Social Studies Links
recommended books
Creatures of the Deep: In Search of the Sea's Monsters and the World They Live In
By Erich Hoyt
Published October 2001
Grades: 6-8, 9-12
Subjects: Science & Technology
This photo-packed introduction to deep-sea life is divided into three sections providing a tour through the ocean layers; a selection of ocean creatures, from sharks to dragonfish; and finally a descent to the longest mountain range, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and hydro-thermal vents. If you are a monster movie fan, wait until you see the deep-sea dragonfish, then sleep soundly knowing the largest is only a foot long.
More Recommended Science & Technology Books
El Niño: Unlocking the Secrets of the Master Weather-Maker
By J. Madeleine Nash
Published March 2002
Grades: 9-12; Professional Development
Subjects: Science & Technology
El Niño and La Niña are driven by cyclic temperature fluctuations in the Pacific Ocean that lead to world wide disasters as seemingly unrelated as an outbreak of Rift Valley fever in East Africa and uncontrollable forest fires in Borneo. Nash has provided a history of the scientific observations that have added to our understanding of El Niño.
More Recommended Science & Technology Books
Extraordinary Explorers and Adventurers
By Judy Alter
Published March 2001
Grades: 3-5, 6-8
Subjects: Social Studies
This collection of 73 short biographies celebrates legendary and historical explorers and adventurers. Subjects included are Gilgamesh, Captain James Cook, and Sally Ride, men and women who have climbed mountains, flown into space, descended to the ocean depths, and traveled to new lands. Some might object to the mixing of fictional and factual figures or question the crediting of Peary with even reaching the North Pole, but exploration has always invited controversy. An extensive resources section lists books and Websites for additional exploration and adventure.
More Recommended Social Studies Books
How Whales Walked into the Sea
By Faith McNutty
Published January 1999
Grades: PreK-2, 3-5
Subjects: Science & Technology
Did you know that the ancestors of modern whales were land dwellers with four legs, a tail and furry coats? McNulty takes elementary students on a journey through the evolution of whales, creatures we now know as ocean dwellers. The vivid illustrations, paired with easy to understand science text makes for a wonderful read.
More Recommended Science & Technology Books
Into the A, B, Sea: An Ocean Alphabet
By Deborah Lee Rose and Steve Jenkins
Published September 2000
Grades: PreK-2; 3-5
Subjects: Science & Technology
This alphabet picture book features sea creatures, from anemones to zooplankton. Chiuldren 4-8 year will find a lot to look at in Jenkins's paper collages. Told in rhyming couplets, this book would make a good introduction to a unit on the sea.
More Recommended Science & Technology Books
On the Water: Discovering America in a Rowboat
By Nathaniel Stone
Published July 2002
Grades: 9-12
Subjects: Social Studies; Health & Fitness
When the author was ten, he discovered while studying a map that it would be possible to circumnavigate the eastern United States in a boat using rivers, canals, lakes, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic Ocean. In April 1999, he set out in a seventeen-foot scull to do it. Rowing the proverbial slow-boat, Stone had ample time to meet the local characters.
More Recommended Social Studies Books
More Recommended Health & Fitness Books
Seas of Life Ocean World
By BBC
Published February 2002
Grades: 3-5, 6-8
Subjects: Science & Technology
This photo-packed introduction to the oceans and ocean life examines different water environments, such as tidal zones, coral seas, temperate and tropical seas, the poles, the open ocean, and the deep. A glossary is provided, as are pages of facts for each ocean zone.
More Recommended Science & Technology Books