Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum/Geology of National Parks module. Students use the geometric mean and multiplicative standard deviation to examine the right-skewed distribution of nutrient concentrations in water-quality data at Mammoth Cave National Park.

In this presentation, we will discuss how saltwater intrusion affects small islands freshwater supplies, and how tourism is a significant part of this. In Zanzibar fresh water for drinking and other purposes come from rain that replenishes the island’s groundwater reservoir and in many cases freshwater is a scarce resource. On top of this, the excessive pumping in groundwater for the tourist industry increases the risk of salt water seeping into the freshwater magazine from the sea, thereby destroying the freshwater resource.

In this presentation we will discuss how tourism affects the daily water use in Zanzibar and how a significant water consumption, has the potential of undermining the sustainability of the tourist sector in Zanzibar. Zanzibar has a great water disparity with 15 times higher daily water use per tourist compared with local residents.

In this video, members of the Menominee nation discuss their experiences with climate change.

This list of children's books recommends nonfiction titles that supplement basic information found in lessons and activities of this themed issue of the online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle. The books are grouped by topic -- water, weather and climate, and atmosphere. Each book is described by its content, reading level, and possible uses in the classroom. Covers are pictured. The online magazine is produced for elementary school teachers and is structured around the essential principles of climate sciences and climate literacy.

Four unit plans provide opportunities for in-depth explorations of important foundational climate concepts -- weather, water as a solid, liquid and gas, and the water cycle -- that are appropriate for K-2 and 3-5 learners. These unit plans incorporate many of the lessons highlighted in other articles in this issue of the online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle. The magazine is structured around the essential principles of the climate sciences.

This article highlights activities for elementary students that model icebergs and develop an informal understanding of the concepts of buoyancy and density. Suggestions for inquiry-based activities are included.

In this video segment from Planet H20: Water World, experts and teens inside and outside the Great Lakes watershed provide different perspectives on sharing the water from one of the largest bodies of fresh water in the world.

With an often unexpected outcome from a simple experiment, students can discover the factors that cause and influence thermohaline circulation in our oceans. In two 45 minute class periods, students complete activities where they observe the melting of ice cubes in saltwater and freshwater, using basic materials: clear plastic cups, ice cubes, water, salt, food coloring, and thermometers. There are no prerequisites for this lesson but it is helpful if students are familiar with the concepts of density and buoyancy as well as the salinity of seawater. It is also helpful if students understand that dissolving salt in water will lower the freezing point of water. There are additional follow up investigations that help students appreciate and understand the importance of the ocean’s influence on Earth’s climate.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Fresh water flows from rivers to estuaries and then to the sea, creating a salinity gradient as it meets the salt water of the ocean. While this salinity gradient is likely to have profound effects on the organisms that call these habitats home, its impact on microbial communities is far from clear. To fill this gap, researchers recently used genomic, transcriptomic, and geochemical data to examine microbial variation in both benthic and planktonic environments along a river-to-sea continuum. They observed a distinct increase in osmoregulation-related gene expression with increasing salinity and noted a prevalence of phosphate-acquisition activities among microorganisms inhabiting the freshwater zone, likely resulting from phosphate limitation, while carbon-, nitrogen-, and sulfur-cycling processes became dominant in brackish water, due to higher nutrient levels. In these brackish waters, photosynthesis was mainly conducted by cryptomonads in the water column and diatoms in the sediment..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.