EARTH Summer 2007

Day 1: Intro to why we are starting with this activity and into long term semester project, students :

Iron fertilization in the news | Back to topUSA Today : (04/02/07)Project aims to ‘seed’ oceans to heal themScience Daily: (03/01/07)Iron in Northwest Rivers Fuels Phytoplankton, Fish PopulationsOcean Conservancy—Blue Planet Magazine: (Fall 2006)Pumping IronNational Geographic News: (6/9/04)Can Iron-Enriched Oceans Thwart Global Warming?BrightSurf.com: (4/19/04)Effects of ocean fertilization with iron to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere reported Science a GoGo: (4/19/04)Fertilization Of Phytoplankton Not A Solution For CO2 Removal

The Biological Pump (Day 2)NICE OVERVIEW FOR TEACHER

I cut and pasted these on the handout for this activity for student reference

Used this one on handout for student reference (came back to with assessment)

Each student used own computer until 2nd part

Great PP. Would be good to use when covering nutrient cycling in an environmental or biology class.PP did not go into detail for some of the questions

QUESTIONS (we will discuss these questions as a class on Day 3):What are the primary factors regulating phytoplankton growth?How do nutrients (like trapped/sequestered carbon) find their way back to the surface (the PP)?What does SOFeX stand for?What role do you think iron plays in plant/phytoplankton growth?What would be the temperature effect on the earth if there was less CO2 in the atmosphere?What does HNLC stand for?What seems to be the effect of adding Iron (Fe) to the ocean’s water?What are the chemical abbreviations for the following:

Nitrogen?Iron?Silicon?Carbon?

What is the problem the scientists are trying to understand?

•Changed the questions for my classes a bit to better fit our sequence•Some of the original questions would be tough without having gone further into SOFeX or background articles.

Day 3Reviewed question answers with two other students then we had a class discussion over them

MOVING into Part II The SOFeX Expedition

GREAT OVERVIEW OF EXPEDITION(TABS at top of page allow students to

access more information)

Can get to these sites from tabs on web addresses above BUT breaking them up like this is much more manageable

Students were already in their groups to discuss

I had students in groups of 3 put together a PP that answered the following questions:•How did the scientists go about their work?•What results were obtained?•What kind of training did the people on the trip have?•What kinds of equipment did they use? Also, give a short description of the function of each piece of equipment that you mention. You should talk about at least three pieces of equipment.•What are some of the difficulties they encountered? •Relate your articles from last week to the conclusions of this research project.

They had two class periods (45 minute classes) to put them together.

In retrospect:I would have each group pick one question and expand on it (become experts).It was tedious for all of us to sit through 7 or 8 PP on the same information.

I would also give them the rubric for PP, perhaps show a video on Global Warming, for H/W become experts on their topic, talk about GW second class, give them 3rd class to put it all together and then have them present the 4th class

3rd Part to THE IRON STORY

Lots of graphs (a bit hard to interpret)

Lots of links, some good general info

MIGHT NEED HELP INTERPRETING THESE GRAPHS

AFFECTS

THIS PART IS BIT CONFUSING. THE SAME WEBSITES ON #2 and #3

#4 says to follow procedures (which are after Assessment)

THIS PART MAKES LOTS OF SENSE AND IS EASY TO

FOLLOW

TWO SUMMARY QUESTIONS GET LOST AT THE END

Overall Hot topic (in the news) Great for coast or mid-continent areasEasy fit for biology, environmental or even

earth science (chem and physics could be a bit tougher)

Lesson is well thought out and thoroughTakes quite a bit of time to cover, but any of

the 3 sections could be stand-aloneinterpreting graphs might need a lot of

assistance

PowerPoint used in class after students have read Pumping

Iron Article

Blue Planet

Fall 2006

Right click to watch