Activity 1a: System Interactions and Climate Change

A system is a collection of many parts working together within a defined boundary. The earth is an example

of a system, it is made up of four interdependent parts called “spheres”: the geosphere (land), hydrosphere

(water), biosphere (living things), and atmosphere (air). The spheres are so closely connected that a

change in one sphere often results in a change in one or more of the other spheres. Changes that take

place within a system are referred to as events. In this activity, you will be analyzing data and explaining an

event that is resulting due to interactions between earth’s spheres.

Part 1: Analyze the following figure and answer the questions.

1. What do you think would be a good title for this diagram?

2. In this diagram, list one thing that shows each sphere

Geosphere-

Hydrosphere-

Biosphere-

Atmosphere-

3. Analyze the diagram and complete the cause-effect relationships.

-When global surface temperature increases, atmospheric moisture and E-P Extreme events

(Evaporation– Precipitation Extreme events) _______________________________

-When the atmospheric temperature increases, the land ice and sea ice________________________

-When ocean heat content increases, global mean sea level _____________________________

-When ocean mass increases, coastal flooding and erosion __________________________________

-When global surface temperatures increase, drought___________________

-When global surface temperatures increase, snow cover, glaciers______________________, flooding

______________ and coastal flooding and erosion _________________________

4. Using an example from the diagram, explain how changes in one of the earth’s spheres can cause

changes in other spheres of the earth.

Activity 1b – Causes and Effects of Climate Change

Guiding question: What are the causes and effects of climate change?

Read the following article:

Adapted from: Newsela - What are Climate and Climate Change? Published 12/19/2016

Is Earth's Climate Changing?

Earth's climate is always changing. In the past, Earth's climate has gone through warmer and cooler periods, each lasting thousands of years.

Observations show that Earth's climate has been warming. Its average temperature has risen a little more than 1 degree Fahrenheit during the past 100 years or so. This amount may not seem like much. But small changes in Earth's average temperature can lead to big impacts.

What Is Causing Earth's Climate To Change?

Some causes of climate change are natural. These include changes in Earth's orbit and in the amount of energy coming from the sun. Ocean changes and volcanic eruptions are also natural causes of climate change.

Most scientists think that recent warming can't be explained by nature alone. Most scientists say it's very likely that most of the warming since the mid-1900s is due to the burning of coal, oil and gas. Burning these fuels is how we produce most of the energy that we use every day. This burning adds heat-trapping gases, such as carbon dioxide, into the air. These gases are called greenhouse gases.

What Is The Forecast For Earth's Climate?

Scientists use climate models to predict how Earth's climate will change. Climate models are computer programs with mathematical equations. They are programmed to mimic past climate as accurately as possible. This gives scientists some confidence in a climate model's ability to predict the future.

Climate models predict that Earth's average temperature will keep rising over the next 100 years or so. There may be a year or years where Earth's average temperature is steady or even falls. But the overall trend is expected to be up.

Earth's average temperature is expected to rise even if the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere decreases. But the rise would be less than if greenhouse gas amounts remain the same or increase.

What Is The Impact Of Earth's Warming Climate?

Some impacts already are occurring. For example, sea levels are rising and snow and ice cover is decreasing. Rainfall patterns and growing seasons are changing.

Further sea-level rise and melting of snow and ice are likely as Earth warms. The warming climate likely will cause more floods, droughts and heat waves. The heat waves may get hotter and hurricanes may get stronger.

What Is The Difference Between "Climate Change" And "Global Warming"?

"Global warming" refers to the long-term increase in Earth's average temperature.

"Climate change" refers to any long-term change in Earth's climate or in the climate of a region or city. This includes warming, cooling and changes besides temperature.

How Does NASA Study Climate Change?

Some NASA satellites and instruments observe Earth's land, air, water and ice. Others monitor the sun and the amount of energy coming from it. Together, these observations are important for knowing the

past and present state of Earth's climate. They are important for understanding how Earth's climate works. And they are important for predicting future climate change.

What Is Being Done About Climate Change?

The United States and other countries are taking steps to limit or reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These steps include using energy more efficiently and using more clean energy. Clean energy is energy that puts less or no greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The sun, wind and water are sources of clean energy.

Many nations, states and communities are planning for climate change impacts that may be unavoidable. For example, some coastal areas are planning for flooding and land loss that may result from rising sea levels.

What Can You Do to Help?

You can help by using less energy and water. For example, turn off lights and TVs when you leave a room. And turn off the water when brushing your teeth. You can help by planting trees, which absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Another way to help is by learning about Earth and its climate. The more you know about how Earth's climate works, the more you'll be able to help solve problems related to climate change.

Watch the following videos for additional information about the causes and effects of climate change:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4H1N_yXBiA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtW2rrLHs08After reading the article, answer questions #5-9:

5. Why is Earth’s climate changing?

6. What are some of the impacts of climate change on Earth and its living organisms?

7. How are scientists studying the ways that Earth’s climate is changing?

8. What can be done to help stop the negative effects of climate change?

9. Think Like a Reporter:

● Imagine you are a reporter who has been tasked with writing a story about climate change.

● Create 3 questions you would ask a scientist studying climate change

Activity 1c – Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture

Guiding question: How could climate change affect our food supply?

Adapted from https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/

Read the following passage:

Global climate change has already had observable effects on the environment. Glaciers have shrunk, ice on rivers and lakes is breaking up earlier, plant and animal ranges have shifted and trees are flowering sooner.

Effects that scientists had predicted in the past would result from global climate change are now occurring: loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves.

Droughts in the Southwest U.S, and heat waves (periods of abnormally hot weather lasting days to weeks) everywhere are projected to become more intense, and cold waves less intense everywhere.

Summer temperatures are projected to continue rising, and a reduction of soil moisture, which intensifies heat waves, is projected for much of the western and central U.S. in summer. By the end of this century, what have been once-in-20-year extreme heat days (one-day events) are projected to occur every two or three years over most of the nation.

U.S. Regional Effects

Below are some of the impacts that are currently visible throughout the U.S. and will continue to affect these regions, according to the Third and Fourth National Climate Assessment Reports, released by the U.S. Global Change Research Program:

Northeast. Heat waves, heavy downpours and sea level rise pose growing challenges to many aspects of life in the Northeast. Infrastructure, agriculture, fisheries and ecosystems will be increasingly compromised. Many states and cities are beginning to incorporate climate change into their planning.

Northwest. Changes in the timing of streamflow reduce water supplies for competing demands. Sea level rise, erosion, inundation, risks to infrastructure and increasing ocean acidity pose major threats. Increasing wildfire, insect outbreaks and tree diseases are causing widespread tree die-off.

Southeast. Sea level rise poses widespread and continuing threats to the region’s economy and environment. Extreme heat will affect health, energy, agriculture and more. Decreased water availability will have economic and environmental impacts.

Midwest. Extreme heat, heavy downpours and flooding will affect infrastructure, health, agriculture, forestry, transportation, air and water quality, and more. Climate change will also exacerbate a range of risks to the Great Lakes.

Southwest. Increased heat, drought and insect outbreaks, all linked to climate change, have increased wildfires. Declining water supplies, reduced agricultural yields, health impacts in cities due to heat, and flooding and erosion in coastal areas are additional concerns.

From https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Maps/MapArchive.aspx

Use the reading passage and the U.S. Drought Map to answer the following questions:

10. How has the occurrence of droughts and heat waves changed over the last century?

11. What effects of climate change are impacting our region along the east coast?

12. Identify patterns that you observe in the U.S. Drought Map.

13. What areas of the United States are the driest?

Agricultural Land Use Map

The darker the green color, the more farms there are in the areas of the map above, which shows the percent of farmed acres (in 2007).

Use the Agricultural Land Use Map to answer the following question:

14. Where is most of the farmland in the United States?

15. Predict: If rising temperatures continue, causing droughts and heat waves to occur more frequently, how do you think our food supply could be affected? Use evidence from the text and maps to justify your claim.

Activity 1d - Climate Change and Severe Weather

Guiding question: How does climate change impact our weather?

Watch the following video or read the transcript below:

Is Climate Change Supercharging Hurricanes?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E1Nt7JQRzc

It’s impossible to say that climate change is responsible for any individual storm or hurricane, but climate change is making these storms stronger.How much stronger? It turns out, Hurricane Harvey is the ideal test case to measure how a warming planet and warming oceans, amplify our worst storms.

In August of 2017, Hurricane Harvey dumped 27 trillion gallons of rain over four days in and around eastern Texas. Some places got more than four feet of rain, that's a kindergartener's worth. 2017 was a particularly nasty Atlantic hurricane season. There were 6 major hurricanes that impacted hundreds of thousands of people, costing billions of dollars and thousands of lives.

In future hurricane seasons, storms will likely be stronger and carry more rain. The math here’s pretty simple. The world’s oceans have absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat trapped by our emissions. And every bit of extra heat the ocean absorbs is fuel a hurricane can burn to crank up its wind speeds.The amount of precipitation a hurricane can hold depends on how much heat it pulls from the ocean’s surface. So hotter oceans also lead to wetter hurricanes.We can see this really well with Hurricane Harvey.

Leading up to Harvey, the Gulf of Mexico and oceans around the world were at record highs of “ocean heat content,” a fancy name for how much thermal energy the water holds. The Gulf was primed to feed a superstorm. Isolated in the Gulf of Mexico, Harvey’s path allowed researchers to tease out the precise relationship between extra ocean heat and extra rain.

Before Harvey, surface water in the Gulf was hot - more than 30ºC/86ºF, after, the waters had given up more than 2ºC. All that heat had been sucked up into the storm in the form of stronger winds and heavier rains. This data tells us the warmer Gulf of Mexico likely turbo-charged Harvey from a bad storm into a historic superstorm. Putting an exact number on that is difficult, but estimates suggest climate change increased Harvey’s precipitation over land by up to 40%. As much as 10.8 trillion extra gallons of rain, courtesy of climate change.

If warming trends continue, the trend of slower, stronger, and wetter storms will continue too. But the evolution and aftermath of Harvey shows us that climate change is already making storms stronger and more costly, and that’s something we have to think about today.

In any given year, it’s impossible to predict who and where will be hit by a hurricane. But consider that 40% of the world’s population lives within 100km/62 miles of the ocean. To

deal with tomorrow’s climate-charged hurricanes we’re going to need serious mitigation and adaptation efforts: better building codes, more flood protection, and effective emergencyevacuation plans, to make sure those places are still here after the storm passes.

Answer the following questions using the video:

16. Explain how climate change is affecting hurricanes.

17. Living along the east coast, we are at a high risk of experiencing impacts from hurricanes. How could people living in our region be impacted if hurricanes continue to get stronger? Describe at least two impacts.

Activity 2a - Sea Level Rise

Part 1: Analyze the graphs below to understand what the graphs are communicating to you.

18. What does the x-axis represent?

19. What does the y-axis represent?

20. Is there an upward or downward trend?

21. Where do you observe sudden spikes in the graph?

22. Where do you observe sudden drops in the graph?

23. What prediction can you make for the future based on the graph?

-24. What does the x-axis

represent?

-25. What does the y-axis

represent?

-26. Is there an upward or

downward trend?

-27. Where do you observe sudden

spikes in the graph?

-28. Where do you observe sudden

drops in the graph?

-29. What prediction can you make

for the future based on the graph?

Part 2: What is causing the sea levels to rise?

Adapted from

https://whyy.org/segments/why-do-rates-of-global-sea-level-rise-vary-locally/ and https://sealevelrise.org/causes/

One of the most visible signs of climate change is rising seas. Coastal cities have seen more frequent and larger storms – think Hurricane Sandy – and there are places where water is drowning land.

Globally, seas are rising because glaciers and ice sheets around the world are melting. Water that used to be frozen solid on land is pouring into the ocean. The rate of melting is increasing, it is faster than it has been in the past largely due to human-driven activities that have resulted in higher global temperatures.

30. What is one effect of rising seas?

31. What is causing the sea levels to rise?

32. What is causing the rate of melting to increase?

Go to: https://youtu.be/5YFWTA59nLo, watch the video and answer the question

33. Does ice on land or does ice in the oceans cause sea level rise? What evidence did you see in the video that supports your answer?

Higher temperatures are causing the oceans to warm. When water heats up, it expands and takes up more space and as a result the sea level increases. This process is called thermal expansion.

34. What is thermal expansion?

35. As you increase the temperature of liquids, what happens to the volume of the liquid?

36. Why does the volume of the liquid change when the temperature of the liquid is increased?

Go to: https://youtu.be/3tjMs4RbERw, watch the video and answer the question. 37.Explain the model that was used in

the video to demonstrate thermal

expansion.

38. Can you think of a way that you can model thermal expansion in your home?

Climate scientists calculate that the average global rate of sea level rise at this time is just over 3 millimeters per year, the thickness of about two stacked pennies. But the world’s ocean basins are not a tub that fills up at the same rate when the glacier melt pours into them — there’s variation from point to point on a map.

The map is from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and it shows where sea levels are rising and where they're falling.

39. Where do you observe sea level rise the most?

40. Where do you observe the sea level falling?

41. Predict: What do you think causes the sea level to fall in some places?

There are more local factors that also affect sea level rise in an area. This is called relative sea level rise, and this gives a more accurate information of how any particular area would experience the global phenomenon of sea level rise.

For example, in Atlantic City, sea level appears to be rising around 4 millimeters annually. That’s faster than the 3 mm global average. Go up to Bar Harbor, Maine or down to Key West, Florida and it’s 2 mm annually. It’s about 6 mm in Ocean City, MD, about double the global average. It’s just 1.5 mm in Santa Monica, CA, and actually falling in Alaska.

42. What is relative sea level rise?

43. Which location has the highest relative sea level?

44. Which location has the lowest sea level rise?

What’s happening?

Along the mid-Atlantic, there are two processes that are causing the land to sink – and thereby the water appears to rise relatively faster. First, groundwater is being pumped out for household use, like drinking and bathing, leaving the land to go down. The other is the Laurentide Ice Sheet, which covered Canada, New England, and parts of the Midwest until about 20,000 years ago during the last ice age. The ice sheet was so thick and heavy, it pushed down the land beneath it and made land on the edges pop up.

Imagine, someone heavy sitting on an exercise ball. If you sit on that you’re compressing it and then around the margins you can see a lift. You get off the exercise ball, it pops up and area goes

down. Same thing happens to our land, just more slowly. Around the Hudson Bay in Canada, for example, land is rising, recovering from the weight of the ice sheet and in Maryland the land is sinking back down. And as a result, Maryland has higher relative sea level rise.

Tectonic plates can also affect sea level rise. The tectonic plates under the earth can sink slightly as they slide

45. What are the two factors that are causing the land to sink?

46. Explain the relationship between how much water we use and sea level rise.

47. Explain the relationship between ice age that happened 20,000 years ago and the relative sea level ice that is happening now in Maryland.

under each other, causing the land to sink, as seen on the East Coast. Shifting tectonic plates can also cause the land to rise, which is happening in California and Alaska.

48. What is causing the sea level to fall in Alaska?

Non-tectonic forces can also affect relative sea level. Some models predict climate change could potentially modify wind patterns, or the flow of major ocean currents, which both have the power to push water to or from certain coasts.

For example, The Gulf Stream moves north along the eastern coast of Florida and it takes a right turn at North Carolina. As it moves, the Gulf Stream pulls water away from the East Coast. But the Gulf Stream is slowing down now because the melting ice from Antarctica, Greenland, and the glaciers, is adding a lot of freshwater into the oceans. This is disrupting the balance of the Gulf Stream. This is because freshwater does not contain salt, which makes it lighter than ocean water. Since this freshwater does not sink as fast, it slows down the Gulf Stream. As a result of this, less water is taken from the East Coast, leaving more

water to pile up and causing the sea level to rise in places like Florida, Maryland and Virginia.

49. Explain how the melting ice is affecting the Gulf Stream.

The Gulf Stream causes different amounts of sea level rise along the East Coast and has little effect anywhere else in the United States. In Miami, it’s contributed to over one-quarter of the sea level rise, and in Hampton Roads, it’s contributed to about one-fifth. This sea level rise is a result of yearly changes to the Gulf Stream. Recent studies have suggested that short-term changes to the Gulf Stream can add one to three feet to tides over a day or a week. If this occurs when there are already high tides or a rainstorm, it can cause more extreme flooding.

50. Explain the effects of Gulf Stream on Maryland’s sea level rise.

Finally, there is gravity. Large things with a large mass have higher gravitational pull. Take Greenland. It’s got a huge ice sheet, a lot of mass, and thus it pulls water towards it. When the ice sheet melts – which is already happening – that gravitational pull will weaken. Instead of water being pulled towards it, it won’t be pulled as much and will start to wash back into the ocean basins. With the heavy ice sheet gone the land will also decompress and rise up.

So when the Greenland ice sheet melts, the land pops up, the water moves away…sea level falls around Greenland.

These processes act on different time scales and affect different regions. Scientists have been modeling what the processes could mean for the future – how fast will water rise and where?

51. When there is a lot of mass, what happens to the water?

52. As the ice melts, what happens to gravitational pull?

53. Explain why will the sea level falls in Greenland.

54. Write a summary of how different spheres of the earth affect sea level on a local scale and the global scale.

Part 3: Tangier Island: Among the First U.S. Climate Refugees

Watch the video and complete the chart below: https://youtu.be/dOSK3We8IGM

55. What are some important facts that you noticed in the video?

56. What were some connections that you were able to make with the graphs and the reading that you did?

57. What are you wondering after watching the video (write down any question, feelings, concerns that you have)?

Activity 2b - Ocean AcidificationPart 1: Introduction to Ocean Acidification

Directions: Watch the ACE Science Short: Ocean Acidification video and/or read the transcript to answer the following questions:

https://youtu.be/6SMWGV-DBnk

58. Explain why the shells of aquatic organisms get weaker when too much carbon dioxide is dissolved into the ocean.

59. Why are coral reefs important aquatic ecosystems?

60. Explain why aquatic organisms will not be able to adapt to an ocean that continues to get more acidic?

Fill in the chart below with either the cause or effect found in the video.

Cause Effect61. 1 in 7 people in the world are hungry

62. Hydrogen ions released from CO2 take carbonate ions away from shelled organisms

63. Fish that eat clams, mussels, and other shelled organisms have a hard time surviving because they don’t have enough to eat

64. The ocean becomes more acidic

65. If the ocean becomes more acidic shells of some organisms might actually dissolve in the water

Part 2: Analyzing Data66. Using the graph below and what you learned from the video. Explain the relationship between

Atmospheric CO2, seawater CO2, and seawater pH.

While chemically neutral in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide in the ocean is chemically active. As carbon dioxide dissolves in seawater, it reacts with water molecules (H2O) to form a weak acid, carbonic acid (H2CO3), the same weak acid found in carbonated beverages. Like all acids, carbonic acid then releases hydrogen ions (H+) into solution—leaving both bicarbonate ions (HCO3-1) and, to a lesser extent, carbonate ions (CO32-) in the solution. The acidity of ocean waters is determined by the concentration of hydrogen ions, which is measured on the pH scale. The higher the level of hydrogen ions in a solution, the lower the pH.

The increase of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide since the advent of the Industrial Revolution has decreased surface pH values by 0.12 units. While this may not sound like a substantial change, the pH scale is logarithmic. Thus, a 0.1 unit change in pH translates into a 30 percent increase in hydrogen ions. The pH of the world’s oceans now stands at approximately 8.2, with a variation of about ±0.3 units because of local, regional, and seasonal variations. The pH unit change over the past 150 years is probably the greatest seen over the past several million years.

(Excerpt from Terrain.org)

Change in sea surface pH caused by anthropogenic CO2 between the 1700s and the 1990s.

Using the reading and map above answer the following questions.

67. Where are we seeing the biggest change in ocean pH?

68. Why is a change in 0.1 pH units an issue even though the number is so small?

69. During our first week we learned about biodiversity. Coral reefs are extremely biodiverse regions of the ocean. Coral reefs are found in shallow waters near land along the equator such as: The Great Barrier reef and Raja Ampat reef north of Australia. How might these areas be impacted by our global change in ocean pH?

Part 3: Ocean Acidification Solution Reading & Written Response

Read the Newsela article below and then choose a writing prompt below to respond.

Kelp forests could help combat ocean acidification

Kelp forests thrive in shallow seas and are home to numerous species. Photo by: Douglas Klug/Getty Images

By Mongabay, adapted by Newsela staffPublished:10/01/2019

Scientists have long argued that replanting forests on land could help fight global climate change, but what about restoring forests in the sea? These wouldn't be forests made up of trees, of course, but of kelp. The giant, brown algae thrives in shallow, temperate seas and provides a habitat for numerous species.

Kelp sucks up carbon dioxide (CO2) from seawater the same way that plants on land absorb it from the air. Scientists theorize that because kelp absorbs carbon dioxide, kelp forests could help combat ocean acidification. Both climate change and ocean acidification stem from the same problem: a massive increase in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. This rise is due mainly to people burning fossil fuels and slashing forests on land. 

Right now, the ocean is absorbing some of the excess carbon dioxide that humans release into the atmosphere. As a result, seawater is becoming more acidic, and this can have damaging effects on marine life. Kelp forests might be able to help with this problem. Scientists are testing this theory in a five-year kelp forest study in the waters of Washington State's Puget Sound.

"Kelp, seagrasses, mangroves, and marsh plants consume carbon dioxide in the process of photosynthesis," said Terrie Klinger. She's the co-director of the Washington Ocean Acidification Center at the University of Washington. "Scientists and others are now asking whether marine vegetation can consume enough carbon dioxide to make a meaningful difference in local seawater chemistry."

The Puget Sound Restoration Fund, a local NGO, will partner with the Washington Ocean Acidification Center. Together, they plan to grow kelp

forests from scratch to test how effective kelp actually is at fighting ocean acidification. 

Small pH Drop Does Have SignificanceIn chemistry, pH is a scale used to determine how acidic or basic something is. A lower pH is more acidic while a higher pH is less acidic. To date, the ocean's average pH has fallen from 8.2 to 8.1. This seems like a small drop, but it can make a large impact. It takes eons for species to adapt to water conditions, so when the pH of seawater changes too quickly, many species suffer. For example, organisms like shellfish, corals, plankton, and sea urchins rely on calcium carbonate in the water. These use it to build shells and skeletons. The increased ocean acidity means that there is less calcium carbonate available for these animals.

"We know that oyster larvae have a harder time developing at conditions that we find in our waters now," says Jan Newton, the other co-director of The Washington Ocean Acidification Center. She says that certain types of plankton are also suffering from the pH change, and some even have holes in their shells.

If the ocean acidifies too much, organisms at the bottom of the food web could die out, which could have a ripple effect through the oceans. Scientists worry that this could ultimately affect the fish and fisheries on which millions of people depend. 

The waters off the U.S. west coast are already naturally more acidic than many other places in the world. This is due to carbon-saturated water coming from the deep ocean. Water in Puget Sound sometimes plunges to a pH of 7.8., which makes it a good place to test what the future of the oceans might look like. Scientists expect that the average global ocean pH level could fall to 7.7 by the end of the century because of extra carbon emissions. They're also using the Puget Sound as a testing ground to see if kelp could actually raise pH back to a more normal level in the water around it. 

The team plans to plant two species of kelp during the winter. They will do this by stringing kelp seedlings between rafts. The kelp will grow downward into the water, creating an upside-down forest.

Collecting Data Day And Night

Once winter is over, the kelp will start growing up to 18 inches a day. Scientists will begin gathering data on how the marine forest is impacting the water's chemistry both inside and outside the kelp rafts. They will collect data both during the day, when the kelp takes in carbon dioxide, and at night, when it releases some of the gas. Eventually, the kelp will reach a length of several meters, at which point the researchers will remove it from the water.

The key is to allow the kelp to absorb the carbon dioxide and then to remove the kelp, says Newton. If they don't remove the kelp, carbon dioxide will be released back into the water as bacteria break down the plant. The team members haven't yet decided what to do with the kelp once they remove it, but they may sell it as food, compost, or even biofuel. 

However, using kelp as food, compost, or biofuel means that the carbon absorbed by the kelp will eventually be released back into the atmosphere. Still, at least it will be removed from the oceans, where it is causing ocean acidification. The kelp will also help remove nutrient pollution that runs into the ocean from farms, says team member Simone Alin. More research is needed to fully understand the role that kelp forests play in the carbon cycle, but most scientists believe that kelp does not add any additional carbon to the atmosphere, adds Alin.

The team expects that the kelp forests will do more than simply fight ocean acidification. They will also create a large area of seaweed habitat that will almost certainly be used by fish and other marine animals, explains Joth Davis. He is the lead scientist at the Puget Sound Restoration Fund. Davis said various institutions plan to survey the kelp forest in the spring to see which animals are using it.

Whatever the outcomes of the research, the oceans will likely continue to change. The study will help scientists and policymakers gain a better understanding of how kelp forests could help marine life during this time of ecological disruption.

70. Choose one of the following writing prompts. Use information you learned from the article in your response.

Writing prompts:

-Write a letter to an elected official explaining why Maryland and the Eastern shore should consider planting Kelp forests off the coast. -Write a biopoem summarizing what you learned from this article in a poetic way. (Example of a periodic table biopoem found below)

-Write a response from the point of view of an aquatic organism. Be clear about what organism you are (kelp, shellfish, fish, etc) and explain your point of view in the ocean during ocean acidification and why kelp forests may help your life.

Periodic table biopoem example:

The Periodic TableColumns called families, rows called periods, arranged by atomic numberMendeleev’s childLover of electrons, protons, and neutronsWho feels the heat caused by sodium in water, the lightness of argon, and the weight of platinumWho needs all the attention I can giveWho fears computers, iPads, and TVsWho gives gases, metalloids, and more information than I can rememberWho would like to tell us all about the world and likes it when more elements are addedResident of my chemistry textbook of elements

Prompt chosen: ____

Response: