Maury Project Peer-Led Training Sessions

Following is a listing of oceanography topics treated by Maury Peer Trainers in teacher enhancement seminars. The seminars are offered in a variety of locations, frequently at state science teachers' meetings. The topics, all of which involve classroom tested, hands-on activities, include workshop guides provided at no charge, to all participating teachers. For more information on the availability of training sessions, contact your nearest Maury Peer trainer.

• Wind-Driven Ocean Circulation
  
  • investigates gyres by first looking at single surface currents and then building to a global perspective of ocean gyre circulations.
  
  
• Density-Driven Ocean Circulation
  
  • investigates density-driven circulation by using a set of temperature and salinity measurements from simulated water samples taken at different depths at a single location in the Atlantic Ocean. The objective is to build a global perspective of deep ocean structure and density-driven circulation.
  
  
• Ocean Tides
  
  • investigates the role of the Moon in generating the ocean tides. Many other influences build on these astronomical foundations to produce the tides actually observed at any specific location. These include such factors as the Sun, shape of the ocean bottom, coastline irregularities, and weather.
  
  
• Deep-Water Ocean Waves
  
  • investigates deep-water ocean waves by generating a simulated wave and observing its progression across the water surface. The goal is to investigate the characteristics of these ocean waves and the water motions associated with them.
  
  
• Shallow-Water Ocean Waves
  
  • uses the simulated advance of surface waves toward the shore to investigate changes in wave characteristics that eventually lead to breakers and surf. The simulation assumes an ocean bottom that slopes gradually upwards towards the shore.
  
  
• Coastal Upwelling
  
  • investigates coastal upwelling and downwelling by looking at the combinations of coastline orientation, persistent wind direction, and Earth rotation that produce the water movements.
  
  
• Measuring Sea Level from Space
  
  • uses data acquired by the TOPEX/Poseidon altimeter located in an orbiting satellite to investigate the relationship between the topography of the sea surface and the topography of the sea floor. Variations in sea level due to known density differences within Earth's interior have been accounted for and the data adjusted to eliminate these effects.
  
  
• Ocean Sound
  
  • investigates the effect of variations in temperature, pressure, and salinity on the transmission of sound in the ocean. The paths of sound waves in the Deep Sound Channel are modeled by the movement of playing pieces across a board divided into slow and fast lanes.

Updated:

The Maury Project is an initiative of the American Meteorological Society in cooperation with the United States Naval Academy and the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, and has been supported by the Teacher Enhancement Program of the National Science Foundation (NSF Grant No. ESI-9353370).

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