Learn about the challenging research work of several of the outstanding fellowship students at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Explore topics such as antibiotics from the sea, the declining health of our oceans, mapping the seafloor, and factors affecting climate change. (57 minutes)

Join Jerry Bode and Warren Smith as they recount the fascinating history of the geological collections at Scripps. (57 minutes)

Ocean Waves not only provide recreation, aesthetic enjoyment and an occasional rearrangement of our shorelines, but can potentially be tapped as a source for cleaner energy. Join Scripps Institution of OceanographyŐs Richard Seymour as he describes how climate variability impacts the "wave climate" of the North Pacific Ocean. Learn how scientists and engineers are combining expertise to harness Waves as a source for renewable electric energy production. (54 minutes)

Join Dan Cayan as he describes his research on the impacts of climate variability and attempts to improve climate and extended weather forecasts in the California region. (59 minutes)

Scripps is home to the largest academic research fleet in the nation. Learn more about this incredibly valuable resource from Associate Director Dr. Robert Knox, head of Scripps marine operations and technical support. (58 minutes)

Join Lisa Tauxe as she describes her research into the long-term behavior of Earth's magnetic field. (42 minutes)

Join Dr. Lynne Talley as she describes how she and others are using decades of ocean observations from floats, research vessels, and merchant ships to discern the long-term signal of climate change that is recorded in our oceans. (49 minutes)

Join Scripps Institution's David Hilton as takes us on a journey to Costa Rica on the first stage of research to find out if volcanoes put out as much as the earth's mantle takes back during the processes of subduction and volcanism. (28 minutes)

Join Kendall Melville as he describes his work on Waves that occur both at the surface and in the ocean's interior and learn the profound influence their energy has on oceanographic and climatic processes. (49 minutes)

Join Scripps physical oceanographer Clint Winant as he describes this complex interface between the land and sea. Learn how he and his colleagues are providing insight into how human activities can impair this fragile ecosystem. (54 minutes)

Modern oceanography has been built on a legacy of centuries of seagoing dating back to ancient times. Join distinguished Scripps Emeritus Professor Joe Reid as he describes what the earliest sailors knew about the oceans and how technical achievements through the ages have allowed ocean explorers to venture to the far reaches of the globe. (51 minutes)

As the name suggests, microbeads are very small (microscopic) beads of plastic. Since they are particles of less than 1mm, they are almost impossible to capture as they enter household drains. This leaves these small, solid balls of plastic to enter our aquatic ecosystems where they are ingested by organisms and accumulated within the food web.  In this activity, students are challenged to design and construct their own device to extract microplastics from cosmetic products such as facial cleansers, body wash, and toothpaste.

Students examine the nature of the problem and work collaboratively to create solutions to the issue of nurdles becoming evermore present in our oceans. Nurdles are small plastic resin pellets which are used to make many of the plastics we use every day. Unfortunately, they end up where they are not supposed to and cause a wide range of problems.  Nurdle Know-How is a series of activities that will ultimately prepare students to design and build a nurdle capture system to clean up their local bay, harbor, or coastal waters.

In this investigation, students design and create a Recycling Sorting Machine to eliminate the amount of waste that is incorrectly being sent to landfill. Students use basic resources (recycled and/or reused items in the classroom, home, or their community) to engineer a solution to the growing problem of waste in our schools.

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:

"Every year, over 9 million metric tons of plastic waste enter the ocean and can harm its ecosystems. When it comes to marine microbes, most of the current research has focused on those that directly colonize the plastic particles. But plastic also leaches chemical additives into the water, which could impact planktonic microbes as well. So, researchers tested the impact of leachate from polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a common plastic, and zinc, a plastic additive, on a natural planktonic community. Some microorganisms, including both bacteria and eukaryotes, were impaired by exposure to plastic leachates. Photosynthetic microorganisms, the base of the food web, were particularly strongly affected, showing declines in photosynthetic efficiency, diversity, and abundance. Other important and normally highly abundant bacterial groups were also negatively impacted. In contrast, microorganisms that thrive in nutrient-rich environments, copiotrophs, dramatically increased in relative abundance..."

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

This article provides an overview of the geography, characteristics, and life of the Arctic and Southern Oceans.

This course introduces theoretical and practical principles of design of oceanographic sensor systems. Topics include: transducer characteristics for acoustic, current, temperature, pressure, electric, magnetic, gravity, salinity, velocity, heat flow, and optical devices; limitations on these devices imposed by ocean environments; signal conditioning and recording; noise, sensitivity, and sampling limitations; and standards. Lectures by experts cover the principles of state-of-the-art systems being used in physical oceanography, geophysics, submersibles, acoustics. For lab work, day cruises in local waters allow students to prepare, deploy and analyze observations from standard oceanographic instruments.

Students compare percentages of protected land and protected ocean and discuss the value of marine protected areas.

Third grade students will pick an ocean animal to learn about. This would work well with a themetic unit.

The ocean is a critical piece of the climate change puzzle. It's estimated that the ocean has absorbed about one third of the excess CO2 humans have added to the atmosphere and more than 90% of trapped heat in the atmosphere. So, today, we’re going underwater to talk about the ocean and climate change with renowned marine biologist Dr. Sylvia Earle.