Richard H. Audet, Ed.D.Richard H. Audet, Ed.D.Middle Tennessee State Middle Tennessee State Univ.Univ.raudet@mtsu.edu

Is Nike the Goddess of Is Nike the Goddess of Ocean Currents?Ocean Currents?

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Stage of the Learning Cycle Stage of the Learning Cycle ExplorationExploration

The Crucial Event Engage Explore Explain Apply Assess STEM Connection

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The Crucial Event

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Explore Explain Assess

In 1990, Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer, whose favorite pastime is beachcombing, learned that hundreds of brand new Nike sneakers were washing ashore along the Pacific coast. Over the years, he’s found a lot of interesting stuff on beaches like hockey gloves and rubber duckies, but never anything like this. Because every sneaker carried a unique serial number, he traced back the “great Nike spill” to a Korean cargo ship, the Hansa Carrier. During a violent North Pacific storm, several containers filled with sneakers were swept overboard. Let’s see what else he discovered.

Analyze

The Amazing Google Earth

What do you know about Google Earth? Your teacher will demonstrate some amazing things you can investigate with this program.

1. Search for the White House, Washington, DC. It’s at (latitude) 38°N (longitude) 77°W.

2. Check out the neat pictures of the President’s home that people posted.

3. What are some adjectives you’d use to describe Google Earth?

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Explore Explain AssessAnalyze

Question:  What do 80,000 Nike sneakers, 29,000 rubber duckies, and 5 million

Lego pieces have in common?See the next page to find out.

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Engage Explain Assess

Tips1. Oceanographers are scientists

who study the ocean.2. Every place on the surface of

the earth can be described according to its specific longitude and latitude.

3. Google Earth enables you to identify the exact location of almost every place by its longitude and latitude.

Father of Oceanography:Matthew Fontaine Maury

Analyze

Beachcomber ReadingBeachcomber ReadingThey have all been spilled in the ocean in maritime accidents during the past few years and have turned up on beaches thousands of miles from where they were lost.  And that's not all that the tides bring in:  computer monitors, toilet seats, surfboards, light bulbs, and toxic-waste containers are among the other items that a committed beachcomber might find.  Curtis Ebbesmeyer is such a beachcomber.  He is also a researcher who studies long-distance floatables in order to understand ocean currents.  Ebbesmeyer, who lives on the Oregon coast, had been studying ocean currents for a number of years when, in May 1991, he learned that hundreds of brand-new (though somewhat soggy) Nike sneakers were washing up on beaches in his area.  In fact, they were arriving in such quantities that beachcombers had begun to hold swap meets to match left and right shoes of the same size.

Unlike most of the beachcombers, who were mainly interested in finding shoes they could wear or sell, Ebbesmeyer figured that if he could find out where the sneakers originated and where they turned up, he could use them as data for studying ocean currents.  In fact, he soon learned that the sneakers had been on a container ship en route from Korea when the ship encountered a major storm on May 27, 1990.  Twenty-one containers were washed overboard, including five that contained 80,000 Nikes.  The sneakers were even marked with serial numbers for convenient identification!  With the help of volunteer beachcombers in many countries, Ebbesmeyer and his colleagues managed to recover about 2.6 percent of the floating sneakers, mainly in North America, on beaches from Northern California to the Queen Charlotte Islands in Canada.  A few have turned up in Hawaii, while others have been found on Wake Island, the Philippines and Japan.  Some apparently circumnavigated the North Pacific and wound up back on the coasts of Washington and Oregon in 1996 and 1997.

Tracking the paths of these sneakers and other floating junk (much of it plastic) that washes up on beaches around the world has helped to develop and refine models of ocean circulation and provided an inexpensive and valuable adjunct to the drift experiments that oceanographers conduct with modern, high-tech (and much more expensive) tracking devices.

Nike Sightings

1. Carefully examine the Beachcomber Data table. What information does is contain and what data will you be expected to enter?

2. Your teacher will demonstrate how to identify locations where sneakers were found and answer questions about the chart.

3. Use Google Earth and the longitude and latitude data and to locate 11 points where sneakers washed ashore.

4. Zoom in to find names for places where the sneakers were found. Enter this information in the data table.

5. What is the distance between each of the 2 consecutive sneaker locations? Add this information to the data table.

6. Save an Image of your work. Student Materials

Engage Explore Analyze Assess

Beachcomber Data

Beachcomber DataBeachcomber Data

Interpret the Data

1. What five statements can you make to describe what happened during and after the sneaker spill?

2. Do you think all of the sneakers found in any one place traveled the same path? Explain.

3. What was long the total distance traveled by the sneakers found at Location 11?

4. What are some possible explanations for how the sneakers arrived at Locations 10 and 11?

5. Look at a map of currents in the North Pacific Ocean. Are there any that flow along similar paths as the sneakers?

6. What currents might have transported the sneakers?

7. What other forces help keep ocean water in constant motion?

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Engage Explore Explain Assess

Facts, Questions, Responses

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Engage Explore Explain STEMAnalyze

STEM Connection

What are some of the old and new technologies that have been used to provide oceanographers with information about the ocean’s currents? Visit the Ocean Motion, CIMAS, and Data Buoy websites. to investigate how water in the worlds’ oceans circulates.

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Teacher Materials: StandardsTN Science Standards

Earth And Space Science: GLE 0607.8.3 Investigate the relationship between currents and oceanic temperature differences.

Embedded Inquiry GLE 0607.Inq.2 Use appropriate tools and techniques to gather,

organize, analyze, and interpret data. GLE 0607.Inq.3 Synthesize information to determine cause and

effect relationships between evidence and explanations.Embedded Technology and Engineering GLE 0607.T/E.1 Explore how technology responds to social,

political, and economic needs.

TN Mathematics Standards GLE 0606.1.7 Recognize the historical development of

mathematics, mathematics in context, and the connections between mathematics and the real world. 0606.1.7 Formulate questions, design studies, and collect real

world data.SPI 0606.1.1 Make conjectures and predictions based on data.SPI 0706.5.1 Interpret and employ various graphs and charts to

represent data. 0806.1.4 Relate data concepts to relevant concepts in the earth

and space, life, and physical sciences

Teacher Materials: Standards

Geography Integration STANDARD 1: How to use maps and other geographic

representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process, and report information indicates that by the end of the eighth grade, the student knows and understands: The characteristics, functions, and applications of maps, globes, aerial and other photographs, satellite-produced images, and models.

Teacher Materials: Implementation Tips

In this activity, students use beachcomber data and Google Earth to trace the path traveled by sneakers that were swept overboard from a container ship in the North Pacific Ocean. Latitude and longitude are plotted to show the path traveled by the floating sneakers. The Google Earth Image is associated with the currents of the North Pacific.

Note: this activity could be completed as a teacher-directed demonstration with a computer projector. If students complete this activity in teams of two, they may be able to email you a copy of their final maps.

Teacher Materials: Google Earth Instructions

1. Open Google Earth™2. To begin the search, copy each latitude and longitude from

the data table into the “Fly To” box. 3. When Google Earth identifies a location where sneakers were

found, activate the Placemark pushpin in the toolbar above the image. When the Placemark dialog box opens, give this location a name, e.g., Sneaker 3.

4. Repeat this for all eleven locations.5. Measure distance:6. Under the Tools menu, click on the ruler/line tool to find the

distance between 2 consecutive locations (e.g., the distance between location 1 and location 2 is 1183 miles).

7. Measure and plot total distance:8. Under the Tools menus, click on the ruler/path tool to mark

the path and to find this distance.9. In the Tools menu, the Play Tour feature can be used to

visualize the ocean path taken by the farthest traveler.

Nike CurrentsNike Currents

Resources & Credits

Cover Page Teacher Materials

Curriculum Resources:http://beachcombersalert.org/http://www.alteich.com/tidbits/t072301.htmhttp://www.dlese.org/library/catalog_DLESE-000-000-007-233.htmhttp://studyofplace.terc.edu/Activities/Activity.cfm?ActivityId=9&ActivityItemId=63http://oceanmotion.org/http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/http://oceancurrents.rsmas.miami.edu/

Images:http://sneakerfiles.com/wpcontent/uploads/2006/11/nike_air.jpghttp://www.paulsboro.k12.nj.us/hslib/greekwebquest_files/image004.jpghttp://www.kidsgeo.com/images/ocean-current.jpghttp://www.navmetoccom.navy.mil/educate/neptune/images/ltmaury.gifhttp://www.worth1000.com/entries/192000/192329taCX_w.jpghttp://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/maritime/MaritimeNation/Geography/Maps/Maps19thC/Maury_Bathy1862l.jpghttp://theoystersgarter.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/north-pacific-circulation.jpg