Lessons From the Sea Page Grade 5 Unit 4

Lesson 3 Seafloor Profiling Activity

Materials per pair of students:
Student Worksheet Data Table	Paper & pencil
Shoebox	Bamboo skewer
Blocks of wood	Graph paper
2 cm grid sheet	Cellophane or masking tape
	Metric ruler

Procedure:

AT HOME: Building the model is a homework project. Once the model is built, with the holes punched in the top, bring it to school and we will be doing the data collection together.

(1) Make your model of the seafloor using the materials listed above.
(2) When you have made your seafloor, paste the 2 cm grid paper on the lid to cover the top of the box. Start at one corner of grid on the shoebox and poke a hole through the lid with the bamboo skewer, continue doing this at each intersection of the grid. Be sure to put your names on your box. Bring the completed model back to school. Don’t show anyone else what is in your box.
AT SCHOOL:

1. 
   This is the data collection part of the project. Trade your shoebox with another group in the class. No one should have their own shoebox. On the “C” column running down the length of the box Push the skewer in the first hole until it touches the bottom of the ocean floor that you have built.
   

(2) With your thumb and forefinger, pinch the skewer where the skewer meets the grid paper. Hold and remove the skewer, and use the metric ruler to measure from the tip of the skewer to your thumb and finger. Record this measurement, which represents the depth of your ocean at that point. Record this measurement in the Data Table.

(3) Repeat steps 1 and 2 along the transect line, poking the skewer through the lid and measuring the depth of the ocean every 2 centimeters. Smooth sailing, across your ocean!

(4) When you have completed your transect line of the ocean floor, make a line graph of your data. The X-axis represents the sea surface. Put start at the origin and end at the proper place farther out on the X-axis. The Y-axis represents the depth of the seafloor, so it should project down, below the X-axis, not upward, as it usually does.

(5) Congratulations! You have successfully created an ocean with a varied seafloor! The graph represents the profile of your seafloor’s shape. On your graph-profile, label any seafloor features you might have, such as continental shelf, continental slope, continental rise, submarine canyon, abyssal plain, seamount, guyot, mid-ocean-ridge, and trench.
(6) Although your seafloor ocean is a made-up ocean, for fun, choose the name of a real Earth ocean or sea to name your seafloor; write the name on your box, your Student Worksheet Data Table, and your graph-profile.

Ocean: ____________________

Hole No. (use as many numbers as you need)	Depth of the shoebox ocean (cm)
1 (start)
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16 (end)

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