Activity: Students will learn what makes each of the world’s oceans unique: location, size, range of depths, and climate.

1. Review the names and locations of the four oceans: the Pacific, Atlantic, Arctic, and Indian.

2. Divide the class into four groups, assigning each group a different ocean.

3. Have each group use the sites below to find important facts about their assigned ocean, including its location, size, depths, climate, and average temperature.

4. On a 5" x 7" index card, each group should write the “fast facts” they have collected about the ocean they researched.

5. Pin each “fast facts” card to the appropriate ocean on your classroom map. Discussion topics: Are all the world’s oceans alike? Which ocean is the largest? Smallest? Deepest? Coldest?

Sites:

Looking at the Sea: Ocean Profiles
http://www.mos.org/oceans/planet/profiles.html

Ocean Data
http://www.mobot.org/MBGnet/salt/oceans/data.htm

Ocean Planet Fact Sheets
http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov:80/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/oceanography_geography.html