Educators and scientists working with NOAA developed a series of lesson plans for students in Grades 5 - 12 that are specifically tied to the science behind the Submarine Ring of Fire 2012: Northeastern Lau Basin Expedition. These lesson plans focus on cutting-edge ocean exploration and research using state-of-the-art technologies. They include focus questions, background information for teachers, links to interesting Internet sites, and extensions. Web logs that document the latest discoveries and complement the lesson plans, complete with compelling images and video, will be sent back each day from sea. Teachers are encouraged to use the background essays, logs, and other resources from the Submarine Ring of Fire 2012: Northeastern Lau Basin Expedition, as well as previous Ocean Explorer expeditions to the region, to supplement the lesson plans.
Read a description of each lesson plan and/or download them to your computer. All of the lesson plans are available in a PDF format, and may be viewed and printed with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. To download a lesson plan, click on its title from the listing below. (Note: if you have problems downloading one of these lessons, right-click on the link and save the lesson to your desktop.)
Grade Level: 5-6
Focus: Force and motion (Physical Science)
Students describe the motion of an object in terms of position, direction, and speed; compare and contrast six types of movement; and design a thruster system that could provide a remotely operated vehicle with forward/reverse, lateral, vertical, and rotational movements.
Grade Level: 5-6
Focus: Robotic analogues for human structures (Life Science/Physical Science)
(from the Bermuda: Search for Deep Water Caves 2009 Expedition)
Students describe the motion of an object in terms of position, direction, and speed; compare and contrast six types of movement; and design a thruster system that could provide a remotely operated vehicle with forward/reverse, lateral, vertical, and rotational movements.
Grade Level: 5-6
Focus: Anchialine cave species (Life Science)
(from the Bermuda: Search for Deep Water Caves 2009 Expedition)
Students describe anchialine habitats, describe the types of organisms that are typically found in these habitats, and discuss at least three ways in which some of these organisms have adapted to the unusual or unique features of these habitats.
Grade Level: 7-8
Focus: Life in anchialine and marine caves (Biology/English Language Arts (Technical Reading))
Students compare and contrast anchialine and marine caves, describe the biological significance of animals that live in these caves, explain why it is important to protect individual caves from destruction or pollution, and describe some of the precautions that scientists must take when studying these caves.
Grade Level: 7-8
Focus: Geologic processes that form caves (Earth Science)
Students will describe the general biology and morphology of Lophelia corals, explain how these corals contribute to the development of complex communities, identify ways in which these corals are threatened by human activities, and discuss ways in which Lophelia communities are important to humans.
Grade Level: 7-8
Focus: Biogeography of anchialine cave fauna (Life Science)
Students describe observations that suggest connections between widely separated anchialine cave populations, and discuss at least three theories that could explain these observations.
Grade Level: 9-12
Focus: Doppler effect (Physical Science/Physics)
Students explain the Doppler effect, describe how the Doppler effect can be used to measure current velocity, and compute current velocity from Doppler shift data.
Grade Level: 9-12
Focus: Anchialine caves of Bermuda [Earth Science/English Language Arts (Literature)]
Students describe anchialine caves; and explain the relationship between anchialine caves of Bermuda, the wrecking of the merchant ship Sea Venture, and Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”.
Grade Level: 9-12
Focus: Evolution of anchialine cave fauna (Life Science)
Students describe anchialine cave habitats, discuss ways in which anchialine cave fauna are unusual, and compare and contrast four biogeographical models to explain observed distribution patterns of anchialine cave fauna.
Grade Level: 9-12
Focus: Metabolic adaptations to low-oxygen environments and technical reading (Life Science)
(from the Bermuda: Search for Deep Water Caves 2009 Expedition)
Students discuss the basis for hypothetical metabolic adaptations to low-oxygen environments, and will evaluate evidence from a research report that tests this hypothesis.
Grade Level: 9-12
Focus: Remotely operated vehicles for exploring anchialine caves (Physics/Earth Science/Technology)
(from the Bermuda: Search for Deep Water Caves 2009 Expedition)
Students discuss remotely operated vehicles and onboard systems used for exploring anchialine caves, and will explain the design and construction process for a simple robot explorer.
Grade Level: 9-12
Focus: Relict species (Life Science)
(from the Bermuda: Search for Deep Water Caves 2009 Expedition)
Students define relict species, describe at least three examples of relict species associated with anchialine caves, and discuss why these caves may have unusually high proportion of relict and endemic species.
Grade Level: 5-6
Focus: Limestone landforms and aquifers (Physical Science/Earth Science)
(from the Submerged New World 2009 Expedition)
Students compare and contrast igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks, and name examples of each. Students will define karst landforms, describe typical features of these landforms, explain processes that shape them, and discuss their relevance to aquifers.
Grade Level: 5-6
Focus: Formation of seamounts the Axial-Cobb-Eikelberg-Patton chain, Gulf of Alaska (Physical Science/Earth Science)
(from the Exploring Alaska’s Seamounts 2002 Expedition)
Students describe the processes that form seamounts, describe the movement of tectonic plates in the Gulf of Alaska region and explain the types of volcanic activity that might be associated with these movements, and describe how a combination of hotspot activity and tectonic plate movement could produce the arrangement of seamounts observed in the Axial-Cobb-Eikelberg-Patton chain.
Grade Level: 5-6
Focus: Larval recruitment on New England seamounts (Life Science)
(from the Mountains in the Sea 2004 Expedition)
Students explain the meaning of “larval dispersal” and “larval retention” and explain their importance to populations of organisms in the marine environment. Given data on recruitment of organisms to artificial substrates, students will also draw inferences about larval dispersal in these species.
Grade Level: 7-8
Focus: (Physical Science/Life Science) Underwater Robotic Vehicles for Scientific Exploration
(from the New Zealand America Submarine Ring of Fire 2007 Expedition)
In this activity, students will be able to describe and contrast at least three types of underwater robots used for scientific explorations, discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using underwater robots in scientific explorations, and identify robotic vehicles best suited to carry out certain tasks.
Grade Level: 7-8
Focus: Side scan sonar (Earth Science/Physical Science)
(from the Bonaire 2008: Exploring Coral Reef Sustainability with New Technologies Expedition)
In this activity, students will describe side-scan sonar, compare and contrast side-scan sonar with other methods used to search for underwater objects, and make inferences about the topography of an unknown and invisible landscape based on systematic discontinuous measurements of surface relief.
Grade Level: 7-8
Focus: Biological communities of Alaska seamounts (Life Science)
(from the Exploring Alaska’s Seamounts 2002 Expedition)
Students infer why biological communities on seamounts are likely to contain unique or endemic species, calculate an index of similarity between two biological communities given species occurrence data, make inferences about reproductive strategies in species that are endemic to seamounts, and explain the implications of endemic species on seamounts to conservation and extinction of these species.
Grade Level: 7-8
Focus: Food webs in the vicinity of seamounts (Life Science)
(from the Mountains in the Sea 2003 Expedition)
Students describe typical marine food webs, explain why food is generally scarce in the deep-ocean environment, and discuss reasons that seamounts may support a higher density of biological organisms than would appear to be possible considering food available from primary production at the ocean’s surface.
Grade Level: 9-12
Focus: Physics and physiology of SCUBA diving (Physical Science/Life Science)
(from the Cayman Islands Twilight Zone 2007 Expedition)
In this activity, students will be able to define Henry’s Law, Boyle’s Law, and Dalton’s Law of Partial Pressures, and explain their relevance to SCUBA diving; discuss the causes of air embolism, decompression sickness, nitrogen narcosis, and oxygen toxicity in SCUBA divers; and explain the advantages of gas mixtures such as Nitrox and Trimix and closed-circuit rebreather systems.
Grade Level: 9-12
Focus: Underwater Robotic Vehicles
(from the Bonaire 2008: Exploring Coral Reef Sustainability with New Technologies Expedition)
In this activity, students will be able to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using underwater robots in scientific explorations, identify key design requirements for a robotic vehicle that is capable of carrying out specific exploration tasks, describe practical approaches to meet identified design requirements, and (optionally) construct a robotic vehicle capable of carrying out an assigned task.
Grade Level: 9-12
Focus: Fate of benthic invertebrate larvae in the vicinity of seamounts (Earth Science)
(from the 2006 Exploring Ancient Coral Gardens Expedition)
Students field data to evaluate an hypothesis about the influence of a water circulation cell on the retention of benthic invertebrate larvae in the vicinity of a seamount, and describe some potential advantages and disadvantages to species whose larvae are retained in the vicinity of seamounts where the larvae are produced. Students will also describe the consequences of partial or total larval retention on the biological evolution of species producing these larvae.
Grade Level: 9-12
Focus: Circulation cells in the vicinity of seamounts (Earth Science)
(from the Mountains in the Sea 2003 Expedition)
Students interpret data from a three-dimensional array of current monitors to infer an overall pattern of water circulation, hypothesize what effect an observed water circulation pattern might have on seamount fauna that reproduce by means of floating larvae, and describe the importance of measurements to verify theoretical predictions.
Grade Level: 9-12
Focus: Biological Sampling Methods (Biological Science)
(from the 2003 Mountains in the Sea Expedition)
In this activity, students will understand the use of four methods commonly used by scientists to sample populations; students will understand how to gather, record, and analyze data from a scientific investigation; students will begin to think about what organisms need in order to survive; students will understand the concept of interdependence of organisms.
