This activity demonstrates to students how water temperature and the concentration of dissolved and suspended solids affect the density of sea water. They will use various materials, such as salt and food coloring, to create and test water of different densities and record the time it takes drops of different water to sink through a mineral oil cylinder. In the second part of the activity, students ... Full description.

This page offers a list of links to eight websites that relate to deep sea vents. A short description follows each link, listing the reference materials, interactive tools, videos, sound recordings, photo archives, or other resources that can be found there. The sites cover the topics of underwater acoustics, sea surface temperatures, global ocean circulation, volcanoes and pillow lava, and the geology ... Full description.

This classroom activity gives students a close-up look at a deep sea vent community. Working in small groups, students can complete this Web investigation in a single class period. The printable six-page handout includes a series of inquiry-based questions that prompt students to remember what they already know about deep sea vents and how they can tell if something is living. It has detailed directions ... Full description.

This interactive map viewer allows users to visualize and download in-situ oceanographic or atmospheric data from a Dapper OpenDap server. The map can be zoomed or dragged, with an in-situ station layer that allows selection of data stations, and a plot window that allows users to plot data from one or more stations. Datasets (temperature, salinity, current, chemistry) include realtime global Argo ... Full description.

In this activity, students investigate some basic principles of solubility as they relate to underwater volcanic activity and hydrothermal vent systems. They should be able to describe the effect of temperature and pressure on solubility of gases and solid materials, describe the effect of temperature and pressure on the phase state of gases, and explain observed chemical phenomena around deep-sea ... Full description.

In this lesson students discover what factors are indicative of chemotrophic nutritional strategies. Students will be able to describe at least three chemotrophic symbioses known from deep-sea habitats. They will identify and explain three indicators of chemotropic nutrition. This hands-on activity uses online data resources and includes: focus questions, background information, evaluations and extensions, ... Full description.

In this lesson students will discover the relative energy content of light hydrocarbons that might serve as substrates for chemosynthesis in deep-water coral communities. They will compare and contrast photosynthesis and chemosynthesis as processes that provide energy to biological communities. Given information on the molecular structure of two or more substances, they will make inferences about ... Full description.

In this lesson, students will investigate hydrothermal vents to see how the chemistry of the water they emit provides clues to the location of the vents. They should be able to describe hydrothermal vents and characterize vent plumes in terms of physical and chemical properties; describe data gathering operations in which a towed instrument package ("tow-yo") measures conductivity, temperature, and ... Full description.

In this lesson students discover how growth rates of corals can be estimated from samples collected at a single point in time. Students will identify and briefly explain two methods for estimating the age of hard corals, learn how oxygen isotope ratios are related to water temperature, and interpret data on oxygen isotope ratios to make inferences about the growth rate of deep-sea corals. This hands-on ... Full description.

In this lesson, students will discover what causes hydrothermal vents to form as they study the development of vents along the Galapagos Rift. They will conduct investigations to observe the formation of precipitates, create a model of a developing hydrothermal vent, and generate comparisons between their model and the actual hydrothermal vents developing along the Galapagos Rift. Handouts and links ... Full description.