Explore how melting of ice cubes floating in water is influenced by the salinity of the water. Important oceanographic concepts like density and density driven currents are visualized and can be discussed on the basis of this experiment. Context Audience This hands-on experiment is suited for many different audiences and can be used to achieve a wealth […]
Groundwater dynamics in the kitchen. This activity is suitable for young children who wonder where the tap water comes from. All you need is some sand, an empty toilet paper roll, and some water. First, you need to build your well. You could dig a hole into a sand-filled bucket and then put in the toilet paper […]
Guest post by Kristin Richter! Today I’m excited to bring to you a guest post from Innsbruck, Austria, written by my friend Kristin Richter. Kristin ran the oceanography lab in Bergen before I took over, and she is a total enabler when it comes to deciding between playing with water, ice and food dye, or doing “real” […]
Tank experiment on a typical circulation in a fjord. Traditionally, a fjord circulation experiment has been done in GEOF130’s student practicals. Pierre and I recently met up to test-run the experiment before it will be run in this year’s course. This is the setup of the experiment: A long and narrow tank, filled with salt water, […]
Visualization of progressive waves: wave form and energy move forward while the rope itself stays in place. When I talked about waves in GEOF130 recently, in order to explain the concept of progressive waves, I showed a drawing from one of the textbooks, where someone was moving a rope such that waves traveled on the […]
Students build thermometers. As described in this post, I like to have students build “instruments” to measure the most oceanographic properties (temperature, salinity and density). I find that they appreciate oceanographic data much more once they have first-hand experience with how difficult it is to design instruments and make sense of the readings. Over the last […]
Students evaporate water to measure the salinity of a water sample. As described in this post, I like to have students build “instruments” to measure the most oceanographic properties (temperature, salinity and density). I find that they appreciate oceanographic data much more once they have first-hand experience with how difficult it is to design instruments and […]
Students build a device to measure density. As described in this post, I like to have students build “instruments” to measure the most oceanographic properties (temperature, salinity and density). I find that they appreciate oceanographic data much more once they have first-hand experience with how difficult it is to design instruments and make sense of […]
Doing the “tasting sea water” activity again with a different group of students. A very good introduction to the concept of salinity is the “tasting sea water” activity. Last time I ran that activity, students were very quick to correctly connect the samples with the correct sampling locations without much discussion going on. This time […]
Internal waves are shown in simple 0.5l bottles. Waves travel on the interface between fluids of different densities and the phase speed of those waves depends on the density difference between the two fluids. The simplest way to demonstrate this in class can be seen below – two 0.5l plastic bottles are used, one half-filled […]
Instruction for a very simple DIY tidal model. Today, we built a very simple DIY tidal model in class. It consists of two sets of tidal bulges: One locked in place relative to the sun on the piece of cardboard that we use as the base, the other one with its very own little moon […]
More details on the structure of fresh water and salt water ice. Fresh water and salt water ice have very different structures as I already discussed in this post. In the image above you see that the structures are very different. Whereas fresh water ice is clear and transparent, salt water ice has a porous structure […]
Different didactical settings in which the “ice cubes melting in fresh and salt water” experiment can be used. In part 1 and 2 of this series, I showed two different ways of using the “ice cubes melting in fresh water and salt water” experiment in lectures. Today I want to back up a little bit […]
Visualization of how much salt is actually contained in sea water. When preparing “sea water samples” for class, it is always astonishing to me how much salt I have to add for normal open-ocean salinities. Time and time again it looks like it should be way too much, but then when tasting it, it tastes […]
Sea ice and fresh water ice have distinctly different properties that can easily be investigated even in big class rooms. In “on how ice freezes from salt water” I talked a bit about how dye was rejected when I tried to produce colored ice cubes for another experiment. But even non-colored ice that were made […]
The “ice cubes melting in fresh water and salt water” experiment the way I usually use it in class. — Edit — For an updated description of this experiment please go to this page! — Edit — You might remember the “ice cubes melting in fresh water and salt water experiment” from a couple of […]
I’ve been wondering how to best show how sea ice freezes for quite a while. Not just that it freezes, but how brine is rejected. By comparing the structure of fresh water and salt water ice, one can get an idea of how that is happening (and I’ll write a post on that after we […]
Experiment to visualize the effects of density differences on ocean circulation. This is the first post in a series on one of my favorite in-class experiments; I have so much to say about it that we’ll have to break it up into several posts. Post 1 (this post) will present one setup of the experiment, […]
Preparations for experiments to be shown at the science fair “forskningsdagene” are under preparation. Forskningsdagene, a cooperation between research institutes and schools, science centers and other educational places, will take place next month in Bergen. This year’s topic is ocean and water, and many interesting activities are being planned. Today Kjersti, Martin and I met […]
A hands-on activity in which students use real data to find similarities in the sea surface height and the ocean depth along satellite tracks. In yesterday’s GEOF130 class, we explored how the sea surface height and the ocean depth are related. All we needed: Sticky notes, scissors and this work sheet (as always – leave a […]
Hands-on activity to better understand the concept and consequences of heat capacity. Also a great party trick. Imagine you take a balloon. Any kind of normal balloon. You blow it up. You hold it over a candle flame. What do you think will happen? Yes – it will burst pretty instantly. Now imagine you are […]
My favorite experiment. Quick and easy and very impressive way to illustrate the influence of temperature on water densities. Today in the “introduction to oceanography” (GEOF130) we conducted my favorite experiment ever: Cold water in one of the small bottles is dyed blue, hot water in the other small bottle is dyed red. Both are […]
Extremely simple experiment to illustrate the effect of density differences. At room temperature, will coke cans float or sink in freshwater? And how about coke light? Btw, this experiment is only easy if you are in a country where you can get the right soda brand both in normal and in light version in cans. […]
Three in-class experiments run in parallel. Great if you want to discuss how properties are measured and what kind of difficulties you might encounter. Temperature, salinity and density are the most important properties in physical oceanography. Measuring them with a CTD is easy. But can you, using basic household items, build instruments to measure those properties? My […]
Hands-on activity on sea water salinity In the first lecture of the “introduction to oceanography” GEOF130 course 2013, we investigated water samples from four different regions: The Mediterranean, the tropical North Atlantic, the Baltic and Arctic sea ice. Just by tasting their different salinities (40psu, 35psu, 10psu and 5psu, respectively) students figured out which of […]
