As "America’s Ship for Ocean Exploration," NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer’s sole assignment is to systematically explore Earth’s largely unknown ocean. A major task for this mission is to reach out to teachers, students, and the general public so that they may become engaged with expeditions dedicated to purposes of discovery and the advancement of knowledge. Okeanos Explorer Expedition Education Modules are designed to help accomplish this task.
The Okeanos Explorer Océano Profundo 2015: Exploring Puerto Rico’s Seamounts, Trenches, and Troughs expedition offers a unique opportunity for explorers of all ages to investigate the unknown and poorly known areas off the Northeastern United States to the Caribbean.
The education resource collection below includes an Expedition Purpose, a link to the NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer Education Materials Collection - Volume 1, Why Do We Explore? and Volume 2, How Do We Explore?; specific lessons and learning tools relevant to this bathymetric mapping and the exploration strategy of the Okeanos Explorer; and a link to an Expedition Education Module from a recent expedition along the Northeast Coast of the U.S. which include introductory videos, standards-based lessons and much more.
Additionally, below are theme pages on Seamounts, Canyons, and Deep-sea Corals. Each theme page includes a selection of essays from past related expeditions, additional lessons and multimedia tools for the classroom, images and videos, career interviews, and links to past expeditions with a seamount, canyon, or deep-sea coral focus.
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.
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.
The following expeditions cover topics similar to those of interest on the current expedition. Expedition web pages have an education component with associated lessons and other resources that you might find useful to classroom teaching and learning.
