Coastal Climate Science Activities and Experiments
Embedded Files
Pathway:
Poor Water Quality and Algal Blooms
Learn how an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is causing harm to life in the sea and on land by degrading water quality and promoting harmful algal blooms.
Quick guide to navigating a Pathway
Educators gather supplies for the Experiments and review the Explainer resources. If using the worksheets, they distribute the sheets to students.
Students do the Experiments/Analyses and identify the connection arrows on the Framework.
Students check out the the Explainer pages for the phenomena along the pathway.
Educator sets up discussion or other processing activity.
Experiments
Get a feel for the physical, chemical or biological mechanism that is occurring at each connection arrow.
The activities listed below correspond to the connection arrows in the highlighted path. Each activity reveals the mechanism occurring between the cause and effect phenomena.
Make a copy of the framework, and mark off the connection as you complete each activity.
Greenhouse effect (50 min)
Warm water and algae (time TBD)
Runoff carries nutrients to algae (time TBD)
Explainers
After the experiment or analysis, learn the science behind the environmental phenomena.
Each of the Explainer pages has several resources (videos, graphics, articles, interactive visualizations) designed to educate the public. Dive into one or more as needed to fill in your understanding. Groups can split the resources among them.
Increasing CO2 in the atmosphere
Warmer air and the greenhouse effect
Pathway for Harmful Algal Blooms.pdfLesson Plan outline to download:
Lesson Plan - Water Quality.pdfStudent worksheet to download:
Water quality worksheet.pdfWe’d love to hear how you used this tool in your community, how the students responded, and your suggestions to improve the experiments and other resources. Contact us at ccsae@mit.edu.
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