Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Skyping with Dr. Ellen Prager

Friday was an exciting day for the sixth grade. We were able to skype with Dr.Ellen Prager a well respected marine scientist and author. The girls asked her many questions about the ocean. They were mezmorized. It was so exciting to see them totally involved. Just watch the video and look at the pictures taken during the class.  Many of the girls are thinking of entering the science field! I am so happy to see their enthusiasm and be a part of the adventure.

Mrs. Cassidy



 

Friday, January 13, 2012

Day 2 Modeling the Ocean Floor


In this picture we are making the ocean floor.  We used Model Magic, shells,and sand etc. Our whole class is making all different kinds of ocean floors and how we think that they would look. We will put the finished project in the hall so everyone can see.  NK



In this picture my group is making a model of Ocean Features. We are doing this using clay and model magic. It is messy but it is going to look great when we are finished. Right now we are the ocean trench. AB

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Ocean Project

Today we have been making dioramas of the topography of the ocean. My group is showing the different features of the ocean floor. We're adding things such as coral, seaweed and volcanoes. We've been learning about some of the landforms on the ocean floor. We learned about mid ocean ridge, the abyss, ocean trenches and many more. We are also studying the animals that live in the ocean and what parts of the ocean they live in. We are all very excited to see the finished products of our ocean floor projects and can't wait to learn all about the ocean and the creatures that lie within!
-GB








Today we have recently been starting our project on the ocean floor. My group, although we have been  short of supplies,we have been creating the ocean floor! We plan on bringing in some fish and other materials for tomorrow. It will look spectacular!
-GO

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Temperature and Salinity of Ocean Water Experiment

Today we learned that salt water has greater density than fresh water. When we did this experiment we wanted to try and find out why people float in the Red Sea. After the experiment we concluded that the Red Sea has the most salt of any body of water. This means you float all of the time.
The warmer the water is than the faster the salt dissolves.
In these pictures you can see that the colored water is separated
because the orange part has more salt then the green and the orange colored water sinks to the bottom
because it has a greater amont of salt which makes greater density than the green colored water.



 Here is a short clip of the girls at work.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Exploring the Ocean

Welcome to our 6th grade blog on the oceans. We are going to use this blog to share our research, findings, and anything else we learn about the ocean.

Our essential question for this unit is "Why do we need the ocean?"

To start our unit, we watched the video below. It is a TED talk given by oceanographer Robert Ballard.