This video discusses how and why oceans circulate, the major ocean circulation patterns, how ocean circulation patters affect global weather patterns and regional climates, and the issue of plastic waste in the oceans.
It shows the importance of these ocean currents to maintain important fisheries, biodiversity hotspots, global transport routes, and regional weather patterns.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This video breaks down the content and provides nice animations and images to support the narrative.
Additional Prerequisites
The video does a nice job of defining terms, but students should be familiar with basic geography and properties of water.
Differentiation
This is video can be incorporated into classes and lessons about plastic pollution, oceans, climate, marine life, density, salinity, pressure gradients, and the Coriolis effect.
Social studies classes could use parts of this video to connect the vulnerability of many communities to changes in ocean circulation patterns caused by climate change.
This is a great video for geography, biology, Earth science, and marine science classes.
The resource explains the process of ocean current and wind pattern in influencing global atmospheric circulation and climate. This resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Science and Engineering
ESS2: Earth’s Systems
MS-ESS2-4 Develop a model to describe the cycling of water through Earth’s systems driven by energy from the sun and the force of gravity.
HS-ESS2-2 Analyze geoscience data to make the claim that one change to Earth’s surface can create feedbacks that cause changes to other Earth systems.
