This lesson will familiarize students with discoveries in ocean research, including hydrothermal vents and historical shipwrecks. They will learn about the work of deep-sea explorer Robert Ballard and hypothesize about what they might find in the ocean. Students will complete their research by creating a museum exhibit about ocean exploration and by suggesting questions for future research. Full description.

Interdisciplinary curriculum introduces the scientific process, experimental design and data analysis. Units on plate tectonics, hydrothermal vents, ridge visualization, surveying deep sea organisms. Students become the scientists, developing proposals for at-sea investigations, teacher coordinates submission to researchers studying the East Pacific Rise. Students retrieve, organize, analyze and report ... Full description.

This data tip from Bridge, the Ocean Sciences Education Teacher Resource Center archive, teaches about the seafloor using data from the seafloor observatory set up at Axial Volcano, in the Northeast Pacific, 240 miles off the Oregon coast. It includes a variety of educational sites to visit, and a data exercise on topographic mapping of the seafloor based on NOAA/National Geophysical Data Center data. ... Full description.

On-line expeditions explores the ocean depths by introducing deep-sea research with interactive features, photos, audio and video clips and middle/high school classroom participation. The topics covered include deep sea geology and hydrothermal vents; history of deep-sea exploration and technology; hydrography and chemical oceanography; marine life and more. Teachers can access a resource guide and ... Full description.

Black Smokers explains the phenomena of deep-sea hydrothermal vents that occur under oceans within mid-ocean ridge volcanoes. The site describes deep-sea hydrothermal vent life forms, the ocean floor, and the mid-ocean ridge system. Teacher resources include games and lesson plans about the human impact on black smoker environments, the debate on human versus robotic expeditions, tools and engineering ... Full description.

Join Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientists on research cruises to mid-ocean ridges, hydrothermal vents, seamounts and more. Virtual expeditions provide includes objectives, background, daily updates, scientist interviews, slide shows and video clips, activities and glossary. Fact sheets with interactive graphics cover deep ocean circulation, oceanography's history, ice ages, plate tectonics, ... Full description.

Summary of events, expeditions and technology important in ocean exploration by Western cultures. Includes: observations of marine life by Aristotle and contemporaries of the Classical Era; greater detail of 19th century British naturalists and the accomplishments of the Challenger Expedition; the development of the first submersibles in the 20th century. A timeline provides notable events up to the ... Full description.

This site provides access to a variety of oceanographic and atmospheric data products. Some of the products available include Ocean Buoy data, tsunami data, 1997-98 El Nino sea level for the US West Coast, Alaska, and Hawaii, real-time images and data from research ships, climate databases via the FERRET program, the Atmospheric Chemistry Data Server, seafloor data from the coaxial segment of the ... Full description.

Excellent site documents an oceanographic expedition studying hydrothermal vent communities on the Pacific seafloor. Scientists from several disciplines take part, describing their research, the technology needed to conduct deep sea exploration, answering questions from classroom students. Interactive species profiles cover biology of vent marine life, with 3-D views, audio and video clips. Shipboard ... Full description.

The goal of Ocean Planet is to share with the public what recent research has revealed about the oceans and to encourage ocean conservation. Ocean Planet premiered at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History from April 1995 to April 1996. This online companion exhibition contains all of the text and most of the panel designs and images found in the traveling exhibition. Topics ... Full description.