Thermal Expansion and Sea Level Rise

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Description

In this short but effective demonstration/experiment, students investigate how thermal expansion of water might affect sea level.

Construct a scientific explanation based on valid and reliable evidence obtained from sources (including the students’ own experiments) and the assumption that theories and laws that describe the natural world operate today as they did in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

Construct and revise an explanation based on valid and reliable evidence obtained from a variety of sources (including students’ own investigations, models, theories, simulations, peer review) and the assumption that theories and laws that describe the natural world operate today as they did in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

Evaluate limitations of a model for a proposed object or tool.

Develop and/or use a model (including mathematical and computational) to generate data to support explanations, predict phenomena, analyze systems, and/or solve problems.

Collect data to produce data to serve as the basis for evidence to answer scientific questions or test design solutions under a range of conditions.

Make directional hypotheses that specify what happens to a dependent variable when an independent variable is manipulated.

The abundance of liquid water on Earth’s surface and its unique combination of physical and chemical properties are central to the planet’s dynamics. These properties include water’s exceptional capacity to absorb, store, and release large amounts of energy, transmit sunlight, expand upon freezing, dissolve and transport materials, and lower the viscosities and melting points of rocks.

Gases and liquids are made of molecules or inert atoms that are moving about relative to each other.

Variations in density due to variations in temperature and salinity drive a global pattern of interconnected ocean currents.

Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can be transported from one place to another and transferred between systems.

Different patterns may be observed at each of the scales at which a system is studied and can provide evidence for causality in explanations of phenomena.

Changes of energy and matter in a system can be described in terms of energy and matter flows into, out of, and within that system.

Cause and effect relationships can be suggested and predicted for complex natural and human designed systems by examining what is known about smaller scale mechanisms within the system.

Macroscopic patterns are related to the nature of microscopic and atomic-level structure.

Cause and effect relationships may be used to predict phenomena in natural or designed systems.

Time, space, and energy phenomena can be observed at various scales using models to study systems that are too large or too small.

The transfer of energy can be tracked as energy flows through a designed or natural system.

Change and rates of change can be quantified and modeled over very short or very long periods of time. Some system changes are irreversible.

Models can be used to predict the behavior of a system, but these predictions have limited precision and reliability due to the assumptions and approximations inherent in models.

Patterns in rates of change and other numerical relationships can provide information about natural systems.

Explanations of stability and change in natural or designed systems can be constructed by examining the changes over time and processes at different scales, including the atomic scale.

Some systems can only be studied indirectly as they are too small, too large, too fast, or too slow to observe directly.

Models are limited in that they only represent certain aspects of the system under study.