Big Ideas (learning targets)

• Earth is called the water planet because 70 percent of its surface is water

• Water flows over the land, underneath the ground, and rains from the sky

• Water is continuously being recycled

• Energy from the sun drives the water cycle

• When water condenses in the atmosphere, clouds form

• 60-75% of the human body is made up of water

• Most of the Earth's water supply is found in our oceans

• Most people get their drinking water from groundwater

• About 3/4 of the Earth's water is impossible to use

• It's important to conserve water because only about 3% of it is freshwater

• Tectonic plates of Earth's crust are being split apart at the mid-ocean ridge

• Earth's climate would be too harsh to support life without water

• The ocean heats up and cools down slower than land

• People rely on freshwater for many things, including drinking water, irrigation, bathing, and recreation

• Desalination plants remove salt from water so people can drink it

• Seafood, sea salt, pearls, and petroleum are all products from the sea

• As the depth of the ocean increases, there is less light

• The midnight zone is 4000 to 6000 feet deep

• Most marine mammals live close to the surface because they breathe air

• The near-shore zone includes the intertidal zone

• The open-ocean zone is above the continental slope and abyssal plain

• Life is scarce at the bottom of the ocean because there is little light and high pressure

• In the deepest part of the ocean, the pressure would crush the lungs of most organisms

• Coral reefs are very fragile

• Deep ocean vents get their energy from chemicals instead of sunlight

• Certain kinds of bacterium are the primary producer in deep ocean vents