This animated video shows the circulation of the Earth's oceans as it relates to salinity and the data collected from the Aquarius satellite.
Teaching Tips
Positives
The video includes a transcript and summary.
The animation of ocean circulation and currents are easy to follow.
Additional Prerequisites
Students should know what ocean salinity means.
In the Related URLs section, the additional visualizations link is broken.
Differentiation
Students can explore definitions of various terms including water cycle, weather and climate, technology, and societal applications.
Students can do further research on the Aquarius mission overview and summarize how the data can help scientists improve the accuracy of their climate models.
Other resources related to these topics include this video about thermohaline circulation and this video about why oceans circulate.
Scientist Notes
This resource consists of a short 2-minute video that briefly explores the thermohaline circulation of the Earth's oceans and the relationship with other climate systems. This video seems to be a short promo for the Aquarius satellite but still serves as a good introduction to ocean circulation. This resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS2: Earth's Systems
MS-ESS2-5 Collect data to provide evidence for how the motions and complex interactions of air masses results in changes in weather conditions.
HS-ESS2-2 Analyze geoscience data to make the claim that one change to Earth’s surface can create feedbacks that cause changes to other Earth systems.
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
HS-ESS3-5 Analyze geoscience data and the results from global climate models to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change and associated future impacts to Earth systems.
