Eco Patrol is investigating the termohaline circulation.
The theme of this week’s workshop was the termohaline circulation, and for the first time this year, Eco Patrol was joined by students of the fifth grade! Earth and ocean are inextricably linked and depend on each other. If one of these factors change, the functioning of the entire system changes. Temperature, wind, salinity are just some of the elements that affect the weather and climate conditions. Termohaline circulation is a component of the general circulation of the ocean, which is controlled by differences in temperature and salinity. It is one of the most important processes and has a global impact on the climate control on Earth. Without termohaline circulation, life on Earth would not be the same. Circulation alternate deep sea water with water from the surface, and vice versa. Although this process is relatively slow, it is important because when large amounts of water move they exchange heat and nutrients throughout the entire world. To make this complex process easy to understand, we decided to use experiments.
The first experiment was related to water temperature. Through a simple experiment in the aquarium with hot and cold water, we presented how water molecules behave and move. In this experiment, we have shown that the molecules run faster in warmer water and slowly in cold water. In other experiments, we examined the salinity and density of water. To examine which has higher density at room temperature, sea or fresh water, we used eggs. As the egg is submerged in fresh water and float in sea water, we stated that sea water has a higher density. With the third experiment we tried to explain what is density. For this purpose we needed combination of various ingredients such as honey, soap, water, oil, etc. Like a real small scientists, Eco Patrol kids were using laboratory equipment and determined which of these ingredients have a higher density.
Learning about the importance of termohaline circulation was a good introduction to YEE campaign “Change Climate Change” which Argonauta and Eco Patrol are supporting by organizing Eco quiz this Saturday. Eco quiz will be open to participation by all interested, and Eco Patrol kid will guide participants as team leaders.
