Ocean Explorer Expedition Education Modules (EEM) are designed to share the excitement of daily at-sea discoveries and the science behind NOAA’s major ocean exploration initiatives with educators, students, and the public around the world.
The Hidden Ocean 2016: Chukchi Borderlands expedition offers a unique opportunity for explorers of all ages to investigate and better understand the little known sea ice, pelagic, and benthic communities of the most unexplored ocean basin on the planet - the Arctic.
This collection includes an Expedition Purpose written for educators, standards-based lessons on the interdependent relationships in the Chukchi Borderlands marine ecosystems and the ecological roles of common gelatinous zooplankton in the Chukchi Borderlands environment, and a Theme page on the Arctic. This theme page includes a selection of essays from past Arctic expeditions, lessons relevant to the science and technology of this expedition, videos, multimedia presentations for students, career interviews, and links to past expeditions with an Arctic focus. Also included is a link to a blog from our Teacher-at-Sea from this expedition.
Classroom lessons and learning tools relevant to the expedition are listed below by grade level. Although some of these resources may have been developed for past expeditions conducted in other regions of the world ocean, the Focus Questions and Student Learning Objectives are applicable to the current expedition.
Grade Level: 9-12
Focus: Gelatinous zooplankton in the Chukchi Borderlands (Life Science)
Students will compare and contrast the feeding strategies of at least three different types of gelatinous zooplankton; explain why gelatinous zooplankton may function at
several trophic levels within a marine food web; and, given information on the vertical distribution of temperature in a water column, make inferences about potential influences on the distribution of planktonic species in the water column.
Grade Level: 6-8
Focus: Pelagic, benthic and sea ice realms of the Chukchi Borderlands (Life Science)
Students will compare and contrast the pelagic, benthic and sea ice realms of the Chukchi Borderlands environment and predict and explain patterns of interactions among organisms across these three realms.
Ocean Today is an exciting, multimedia kiosk in public aquariums that features videos on all aspects of the ocean realm — exploration and discoveries, marine life, and science. Find out more at https://oceantoday.noaa.gov/.
Here we feature an Ocean Today video that supports teaching and learning related to the current ocean expedition.
These Education Theme Pages are designed to provide the best of what the Ocean Explorer website has to offer to support your classroom during this expedition. Each Theme page provides links to content essays, lessons, multimedia interactive activities, career information, and associated past expeditions.
