4.3: Oceans as a Natural Resource

What do we take from the oceans? How does it affect our daily lives? How does our use of these resources affect the world we live in? Those are a few of the questions we will ponder this week.

We will also be doing a lab activity after watching the Nature feature Crash: A Tale of Two Species.

See if you can find information on the sturgeon and the paddlefish, two other "living fossils" a bit closer to home.

This weeks Contract 18 looks at the cause and effect related to our use of natural resources found in the ocean.

4.1 & 4.2: Ocean Environments

One of the main concepts that spans all the science we cover in eighth grade is that things change over time. For organisms, these changes are usually in response to the environment. In this chapter we take a look at many different ocean environments. We also study the organisms in each biome.

What are the different zones in the ocean?
How do these zones differ from each other?
What are some adaptations that organisms have to live in these different zones?

This weeks contract can be found at Contract 17.