The Universe and Its Stars / Matter and Its Interactions
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The Water Cycle Classwork Name: ______
6th Grade PSI
1. Is water ever destroyed? Explain your answer.
2. True or False: The water we drink was around during the time of the dinosaurs. Explain your answer.
3. What powers the water cycle? Explain two ways in which this energy source causes changes to water within the cycle.
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water The Water Cycle Homework Name: ______
6th Grade PSI
4. True or False: The water cycle always follows the same pattern.
5. We cannot see evaporation occurring because water vapor is invisible. How can we tell it is happening?
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water 6. Water storage is an important part of the water cycle and our daily lives, where do you observe water storage?
7. What might happen if the water cycle stopped?
8. We know the sun powers the water cycle but what powers the water cycle on cloudy days?
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water States of Matter in the Water Cycle Name: ______Classwork #1
6th Grade PSI 9. What is the opposite of evaporation? How do these two processes differ?
10.Describe how water can go through all the states of matter within the water cycle.
11.During what processes of the water cycle does a gas turn into a liquid?
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water States of Matter in the Water Cycle Name: ______Classwork #2
6th Grade PSI
From Toilet to Tap Written by Stuart Thornton
October 21, 2010
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water Holding a plastic cup within the Orange County Water District’s Groundwater Replenishment System (GWRS), program manager Shivaji Deshmukh announces a fact that might make some people’s stomachs turn.
“An hour and a half ago, this was treated sewage,” he says. “A day ago, it was raw sewage.”
Having complete faith in the project and its end result, Deshmukh then downs the water without blinking.
An ingenious method to fight California’s water shortage, the GWRS takes an unlikely resource —sewage flushed down the toilets in Southern California’s Orange County—and transforms it into drinking water that exceeds all state and federal drinking water standards.
Before taking the gulp of refreshing purified water, Deshmukh led me on tour of the facility, which took about an hour, the approximate amount of time it takes the treated sewer water to pass through three processes before becoming drinkable. Costing $480 million to construct, the state-of-the-art water purification project has been up and running since January 2008.
The Groundwater Replenishment System is in an ideal location: just feet away from the Orange County Sanitation District (OCSD), where the sewage from north and central Orange County is treated. Every day, OCSD sends a third of their water over to the GWRS through a half-mile long, 96-inch pipe. Orange County Sanitation District public affairs manager Michael Gold explains the kind of water his neighboring facility receives: “When it comes in [to the OCSD], it’s dirty,” he says. “It’s smelly. It’s full of viruses and junk. As it comes out of our plant, it looks clean, but it’s not clean enough to swim and bathe in.”
Currently, OCSD sends about 70 million gallons of treated sewer water over to the GWRS every day. Gold says that amount of water is roughly enough to fill up nearby Anaheim Stadium, home to Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
Three Processes
After OCSD sends treated water to the GWRS, it undergoes three processes to make it drinkable: microfiltration, reverse osmosis, and ultraviolet disinfection.
The first process is microfiltration. Deshmukh said this gets rid of bacteria, protozoa, and suspended solids in the liquid by pushing it through a series of fiber membranes filled with tiny, hollow tubes. He compared it to drinking iced soda through a straw. The pollutants are like the ice, which is too large to be drawn up through the straw.
The water is propelled through the microfiltration membranes with giant, 600-horsepower engines. Following microfiltration, the water sits in a large holding tank shaped like a rocket ship.
Standing outside a sleek, modern building that resembles an airplane hangar, Deshmukh looked toward the structure, which was marked with large lettering: Reverse Osmosis.
“This R.O. plant is one of the biggest in the world,” Deshmukh said.
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water Inside, the facility looks like a warehouse filled with stacks of plastic pipes.
“The water we get here has been microfiltered, but now we have to take the organics, the pharmaceuticals, the viruses and salts out of the water,” Deshmukh said.
During reverse osmosis, specially made plastic sheets allow the passage of water while harmful material as small as a molecule is separated out. “This is the heart of the treatment process,” Deshmukh explained. “This allows us to make the water potable.”
In reverse osmosis, the water is pushed through the plastic sheets by 1,000-horsepower engines. The program manager insists that the energy used in treating the water is worthwhile when compared to other methods of supplying Orange County with water. One popular method is shipping water from northern California.
“Reverse osmosis uses a lot of energy, but when you compare it to pumping water over a mountain range [the Sierra Nevada], it’s less,” he said.
After Deshmukh taught me about the reverse osmosis process, we stepped outside into the Orange County sun and walked towards the final stage the former sewer water had to be put through. We stopped at a series of steel cylinders that are filled with ultraviolet light bulbs. Ultraviolet disinfection destroys any of the water’s remaining viruses.
“This is the last step,” Deshmukh said. “After this, we actually add minerals back to the water.”
Aquifers
It’s here where Deshmukh and I tip back our plastic cups filled with the newly treated water and drink in a liquid that may have been swirling around a toilet bowl just a day ago. But this water actually has months to go before it will flow out of any of Orange County’s taps.
Half of the water treated by GWRS is injected into Orange County’s seawater barrier. The barrier, a series of wells that function like a dam, helps keep the region’s aquifers, or underground freshwater supply, from being overtaken by seawater from the nearby Pacific Ocean.
The other half of the water is pumped thirteen and a half miles up into Anaheim, where it is discharged into several lakes. From there, it joins the region’s rainwater and settles into aquifers as groundwater. In approximately six months, the groundwater is chlorinated by the cities of Orange County and sent to taps for personal and business use.
Currently, Orange County Water District treats 70 million gallons of water every day. This amount of high-quality water can meet the annual water needs of 500,000 people.
In addition to creating a renewable source of fresh water for the area’s growing population, another benefit is that the GWRS reduces the amount of treated wastewater discharged in the Pacific Ocean.
Though the initial idea of drinking reclaimed water might make some stomachs turn, the success of Orange County’s Groundwater Replenishment System has caused a turn in
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water California’s thinking about the idea of transforming sewer water into drinking water. This change has resulted in a series of proposals for similar facilities across the state.
Questions: 1. What was the purpose of this project? Why was the water treatment plant in the article necessary?
2. Fill in the table below with a summary of each step of the water filtration process:
Microfiltration
Reverse Osmosis
Ultraviolet Disinfection
3. Define the term aquifer. Why are aquifers important to the communities of Orange County?
4. Provide three benefits to Orange County’s Groundwater Replenishment System: a.
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water b.
c.
5. Water used for sanitation naturally becomes drinkable again as it travels through the water cycle. Provide a detailed example of the steps this polluted water could take to move through the water cycle and become clean again.
States of Matter in the Water Cycle Homework Name: ______
6th Grade PSI
12.You have learned about the textbook example of the water cycle. What are some sub-cycles that exist?
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water 13.Is it possible for water to become ‘stuck’ in a step of the water cycle?
14.During what processes of the water cycle does a liquid turn into a gas?
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water Forces of the Water Cycle Classwork #1 Name: ______
6th Grade PSI
15.What are the driving forces behind the water cycle?
16.What causes the oceans in polar regions to be cooler than oceans near the equator?
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water 17.The Coriolis Effect causes air currents to veer off course. What other impacts might the Coriolis Effect have?
Forces of the Water Cycle Classwork #2 Name: ______
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water 6th Grade PSI
Warming Waters Written by Stuart Thornton
November 4, 2010
From the end of a pier jutting into Maryland’s Patuxent River, scientists at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory have determined that the region’s water temperatures are warming.
According to David Secor, a professor from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science who works at the facility, the surface waters at the end of the pier have increased 3 degrees Fahrenheit since people began collecting data from the site in 1938.
Secor believes if little action is taken to slow global warming, the Chesapeake Bay could have summer water temperatures comparable to Florida’s by the year 2100. Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s air and oceans. The release of carbon emissions into the atmosphere, mostly through industrial agriculture and burning fossil fuels, probably contributes to global warming.
“If we do nothing—which is probably the simplest way to think about this—in 50 year’s time, we are looking at at least a 3-degree Fahrenheit rise,” he says. “In 80 years time we could be looking at a 6- to 8-degree Fahrenheit change.”
The Chesapeake Bay is an estuary off the Atlantic Ocean that stretches north into the states of Virginia and Maryland and supports a variety of animal and plant species. More than 100 rivers and streams from New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia flow into the bay.
The plants and animals of the Chesapeake Bay have supported people since the first European settlers arrived in the area more than 500 years ago. Oysters, fish, crabs, and wild rice were part of the diet of the Powhatan, the Native Americans of the region. Chesapeake Bay still produces more fish and shellfish than any other estuary in the United States. The blue crab, the “state crustacean” of Maryland, is the most important fishery in the area.
Secor admits at this time he can only predict what might happen to the region’s ecology and economy as the bay’s temperatures continue to climb. He thinks that climate change might cause declines in species that are already stressed by disease and poor water quality.
Hot Water for Fishes and Plants
Secor says he suspects that Atlantic sturgeon and shortnose sturgeon will be affected by the changes in the Chesapeake Bay. Sturgeon are huge fish, native to most rivers that feed the Chesapeake Bay, including the James and the Susquehanna rivers. Sturgeon, a cold-water fish also native to Russia, are mostly harvested for their eggs, or caviar. Sturgeon are a benthic species, meaning they live near the bottom of rivers.
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water Sturgeon are particularly sensitive to pollution. Runoff from farms and industry, as well as overfishing, have threatened sturgeon populations in the Chesapeake Bay region.
“The combination of warm water and maybe frequent droughts, which are in the offing in the future, could be the final nail in the coffin for species like sturgeon,” Secor says.
Secor also suspects that fish that thrive in cooler waters, including shad and striped bass, could experience decreases in population brought about by a warmer climate.
“These species are already very stressed by water quality, by watershed development, by impervious surfaces, by dams,” he says. “A stress like warming could produce a threshold condition that causes very rapid declines in these species.”
According to Bill Dennison, the vice president for science application at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, the Chesapeake Bay’s rising water temperatures could also change the makeup of the region’s plant communities. He cites an unusually warm summer in 2005 that caused a mass die-off of eelgrass, a marine plant that is commonly found along the mouths of tributaries that flow into the bay from Virginia.
If eelgrass were to die out in the Chesapeake Bay due to warming water temperatures, its disappearance would affect other species in the region.
“Blue crabs and peeler crabs go into the grass to molt, so when they lose that protection they are more susceptible to predation,” Dennison says.
According to Secor, increasing water temperatures in the bay can also cause species there, including striped bass, shad and river herring, to misread environmental cues.
“These species migrate into the Chesapeake Bay according to certain reproduction and feeding schedules,” he says. “With warming, those schedules can get miscued due to environmental conditions.”
Reinventing Ecosystems
At this point, Secor admits he doesn’t know how the Chesapeake Bay will change as its waters warm.
“There’s a lot of discussion about what is the ecosystem [is] going to look like,” he says. “We just can’t say we are going to look just like a South Carolina estuary or a North Carolina estuary or something like that. What we will be doing is kind of reinventing these systems. There will be some species that can adapt to these trends most assuredly, and then others that will be colonizing into the Chesapeake.”
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water Questions:
1. Define global warming. What impact is this having on the water of the Chesapeake Bay?
2. What impact does rising water temperatures have on the native plants and animals in the region? Provide at least 2 examples from the reading.
3. The Sun is one of the driving forces of the water cycle. Besides an increase in water temperatures, what other effects could this heat increase have on the water cycle?
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water 4. Other areas of the world are experiencing temperature changes that are similar to that of the Chesapeake Bay. Some scientists believe that this change may be the result of an increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) production. Carbon Dioxide production is directly related to how much energy we use and how many fossil fuels (gas, oil, coal, etc) are burned. What are two ways that individuals can help limit the amount of carbon dioxide that is being produced?
Forces of the Water Cycle Homework Name: ______
6th Grade PSI
18.How does gravity impact the water cycle?
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water 19.Where is heat transferred during the water cycle?
20.Why is the impact of solar energy different across the globe?
21.In what regions of the Earth would you find the warmest water? In what region would you find the coolest water?
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water Global Pattern of Ocean Currents Classwork Name: ______
6th Grade PSI
22.What is an ocean current?
23.Which stores more energy: landmasses or oceans? Why?
24.How long does it take for a current to flow throughout the entire network of currents?
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water 25.What is the Global Conveyor Belt?
26.Explain what causes the ocean currents to rotate differently in the northern and southern hemispheres.
Global Pattern of Ocean Currents Homework Name: ______
6th Grade PSI
27.Define the term gyre.
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water 28. What impact does wind have on the ocean currents?
29.What powers the Global Conveyor Belt?
30.How do water temperature and the position of landmasses influence ocean currents?
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water Erosion and Weathering Classwork #1 Name: ______
6th Grade PSI
EASTER ISLAND STONE HEADS ARE 'DYING'
Gigantic statues will vanish without preservation effort
Written by Jen Ross
December 6, 2007
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water Sloping slightly sideways on the grassy hills beneath the Ranu Raraku volcano, a giant stone head known as a moai shows the wear and tear of time on this triangular 64-square-mile island.
On the right side of the oblong rectangular face with male features, the rock is lighter in color and its long, carefully sculpted ear and nostril are clearly visible. But on the statue's left side, the sun and wind have eroded the nose, lip and ear.
"The moai are dying by natural causes," said archaeologist Sergio Rapu, a lifelong researcher of this isolated South Pacific island of hills and extinct volcanoes also known as Rapa Nui. "The prehistoric Rapa Nui people noted it would take 300 to 400 years for the statues to become completely eroded."
Such predictions loom bleak for the island's nearly 1,000 signature moai statues, as the constant battering of erosion and rain is slowly eating away at the island's porous volcanic stone.
Easter Island is among the world's most isolated inhabited islands with about 4,000 inhabitants. It lies 2,237 miles west of Chile, which annexed the island in 1888. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Rapu said erosion can be stopped by using chemical resins that seal the stone, as well as stabilizing the ahu, or altar platforms that support some of the moai, many of which are slowly falling into the ocean. But that would be costly, he said.
Archaeologists had hoped this summer's New Seven Wonders of the World contest - organized by Swiss film producer and philanthropist Bernard Weber - would spark the release of funds to restore the moai. The statues were carved between 1200 and 1550 to honor the gods. After placing in the top 10 favorite sites during preliminary results, the island failed to make the final seven, chosen by 100 million people in a popular vote by Internet, phone and mail. When the moais finished eighth, Weber sent Chile a letter saying the statues were "morally" one of the New Seven Wonders, according to the local press.
In the meantime, Jose Antonio Viera, minister of the presidency, said it is urgent for the Chilean government and the international community to come to the rescue. Despite reconstruction efforts by U.S. archaeologists in the 1970s, Japan has been the only country in the past decade to offer significant financial assistance - $671,000 - to restore the sculptures.
"Obviously, Easter Island is Chile's No. 1 cultural heritage site," Viera said. "It has been overseen by the state. ... But we could do a thousand times better."
Chile's President Michelle Bachelet has pledged to help preserve Easter Island by passing legislation to create a national heritage institute on Easter. In August, the Chilean Congress passed a bill, granting islanders greater authority over governance, fishing, tourism and bilingual education in Rapa Nui and Spanish.
"When Rapa Nui became a candidate for the wonders of the world, it was an alarm bell for authorities to wake up and look at what's going on," Rapu said.
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water Local activists also say the moai face threats from tourism, which has more than doubled in the past three years from 22,000 visitors in 2003 to more than 50,000 in 2007, according to the ministry of tourism. Although much of the island is protected by the Rapa Nui National Park, there are only 12 park rangers, Rapu said.
"It's sad to say that after more than 40 years, the national park of Easter Island doesn't have a budget of more than $300,000 a year," he said. "I've estimated that it needs at least $3 million a year. Otherwise, we're just faking" (protecting the reserve).
Many locals - about 60 percent are native Polynesians - say tourism is straining the island's meager infrastructure. Since the 1990s, they say, tourism has brought increasing problems with garbage collection, sewage disposal, and destruction of archaeological sites.
Edgard Hereveri, president of the Rapa Nui Chamber of Tourism, said losing the Seven Wonders of the World contest may have been a godsend for the fragile island.
"If we are already unable to control the tourist traffic we currently have, how would we control it after all the publicity around the contest?" asked Hereveri, recalling the influx of visitors after the release of the 1994 Hollywood movie, "Rapa Nui."
Julio Hotus, who heads the island's Department of Culture and Tourism, said he witnessed the father of Chile's minister of national property hit a moai with a stone to show his wife how they were carved. He was fined $6,000.
"When tourism began on the island, locals saw tourists as cattle, and believed the more they brought to the island, the more money they'd make," said Hoto. "But that has changed."
Now, local guides such as Cristian Reyes set ground rules with tourists before beginning any tour. "You have to respect the archaeological sites. That means that you're not allowed to touch the moai, and you're not allowed to step on the altars," he recently told two dozen tourists.
But throughout the tour, Reyes was forced to gently reprimand a handful of visitors who clambered onto not-so-clearly marked altars to take pictures.
Rapu said efforts to preserve the island and its culture must be accompanied by educational programs. He pointed out that 10,000 archaeological sites of varying sizes are in the hands of private owners, who need to be engaged in the preservation. Rapu suggested paying them a protector's fee per archaeological site.
"That way, each one of the landowners will become permanent park rangers," he said. The "advantage is that they don't have social security, they don't go on strike, and they work Monday to Monday because they are permanently on the site."
Questions:
1. What do scientists believe is causing these stone statues to “die”?
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water 2. What are some measures that archaeologists can take to help preserve these statues? What are the drawbacks of carrying out these measures?
3. In what country can you find Easter Island?
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water 4. Imagine that you are to take part in a debate with the national government over the statues on Easter Island. In your eyes, is it important to preserve these statues? Clearly explain your argument.
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water Erosion and Weathering Classwork #2 Name: ______
6th Grade PSI
31.What are the results of weathering and erosion?
32. What is the difference between weathering and erosion?
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water 33. What is the common element/force between weathering and erosion?
34.Are weathering and erosion interdependent or independent forces? In other words, do both have to always happen at the same time and rely on each other (interdependent), or can they happen on their own (independent)? Explain.
35.Define the term sediment.
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water Erosion and Weathering Homework Name: ______
6th Grade PSI
36.Define the term deposition.
37. What force is in play when water freezes in the crack of a rock?
38. How are sink holes and caverns examples of weathering and erosion?
39. What role do glaciers play in weathering and erosion?
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water Answer Key
The Water Cycle Classwork
1) Water is never destroyed because the Earth is considered a closed atmosphere. Water is continuously recycled through the water cycle.
2) True. The water on Earth is millions of years old and simply gets recycled.
3) The sun powers the water cycle. Two ways it causes changes to water are that it melts ice and it causes liquid water to evaporate.
The Water Cycle Homework
4) False. The water cycle is composed of many sub cycles and constantly changes.
5) Evaporation itself is difficult to see but through the effects of condensation we can prove it is happening. Evaporation can be seen through steam, such as when you shower. Its effects can also be seen in the condensation of dew on a lawn or when you hold a cup over a boiling pot of water. You can also tell that evaporation has occurred when you see puddles drying up the day after heavy rainfall.
6) Water tanks, ponds, reservoirs, etc.
7) If the water cycle stopped life as we know it would stop. Things would dry out and all the water might be unusable.
8) Even on cloudy the solar energy from the sun powers the water cycle because it still is providing heat to the Earth.
States of Matter in the Water Cycle Classwork #1
9) Condensation is the opposite of evaporation. In evaporation, the liquid water becomes a gas. In condensation, the gas becomes a liquid again.
10)Answers will vary. Example: Liquid water is evaporated into a gas, the gas condenses into a cloud, precipitation falls from the cloud in a frozen solid state.
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water 11)Condensation is the conversion of a gas into a liquid.
States of Matter in the Water Cycle Classwork #2
1) The purpose of this project is to provide more clean drinking water to the people of Orange County. This project is necessary because the area needed a renewable source of fresh water to help it deal with its growing population. It also helps reduce the amount of wastewater sent out to the Pacific Ocean.
2)
This process gets rid of bacteria, protozoa, and suspended Microfiltration solids in the liquid by pushing it through a series of tiny, hollow tubes.
Reverse The water passes through special plastics sheets where Osmosis harmful materials as small as a molecule get separated out.
Ultraviolet Any remaining viruses are killed with ultraviolet light bulbs. Disinfection
3) An aquifer is an underground freshwater supply. These underground supplies are important to the communities of Orange County because they help provide water to their large populations.
4) Possible answers include: more clean drinking water, less pollution being pumped out into the Pacific Ocean, less water that needs to be shipped in from Northern California, and the production of water that exceeds all standards.
5) Answers will vary.
States of Matter in the Water Cycle Homework
12)Answers will vary.
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water 13)Water can be temporarily stuck in a glacier, lake or ocean. However, eventually the water will return to the water cycle, although it may take thousands of years or more.
14)Evaporation and transpiration are examples of a liquid turning into a gas.
Forces of the Water Cycle Classwork #1
15)The forces behind the water cycle are the sun, gravity, atmosphere and landforms.
16)The oceans in the polar regions are cooler because they receive less solar energy from the sun due to the curvature of the earth.
17)Other impacts of the Coriolis Effect include the way airplanes or missiles move.
Forces of the Water Cycle Classwork #2
1) Global warming is the increase in average temperature of the Earth’s air and oceans. This is causing the water of the Chesapeake Bay region to warm up, which could have an effect on the wildlife in the area.
2) Some animals in the region are only found in cold water, which means that they will be unable to live in the region anymore. Other animals could be affected by more frequent droughts that could come as a result of this warming. Some plants would be unable to survive in a warmer climate as well. This would have a ripple effect on animals that rely on these plants for food and protection. Finally, rising temperatures could cause animals to misread environmental cues that help them determine their reproduction and feeding schedules.
3) Answers will vary, but could mention an increase in air temperatures.
4) Answers will vary, but some examples could include: limiting the amount of driving, buying fuel-efficient or alternative fuel cars, using less electricity, etc.
Forces of the Water Cycle Homework
18)As water is evaporated by the sun and lifted into the atmosphere, gravity pulls the water back to Earth in the form of precipitation. Gravity also causes the runoff to
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water flow through rivers and streams back to the ocean. Along its way gravity pulls against the water eroding the earth, cutting canyons and transporting sediments.
19)As water is constantly traveling through the water cycle it is releasing its absorbed heat. The heat from the Sun that causes water to evaporate is put into the air when the water condenses into clouds and precipitates. The continuous evaporation and condensation cycle is a main way heat is transferred from the Earth's surface to the atmosphere and in moving heat around the Earth.
20)While solar energy influences all surface process, its impact is not consistent because the Earth is a sphere. The amount of sunlight and its influence depends on the angle of the earth in relation to the sun.
21)The warmest water would be found closest to the equator and the coolest water would be found closest to the poles.
Global Pattern of Ocean Currents Classwork
22)An ocean current is the movement of ocean water that flows in one of the Earth's oceans.
23)When compared to the land masses on Earth, the oceans store much more heat. Since the majority of the thermal energy on Earth is stored in the oceans, they are important in the regulation of Earth’s climate.
24)It takes approximately 1000 years for a current to complete the cycle.
25)The Global Conveyor Belt is a deep ocean current that is fueled by differences in temperature and salinity.
26)The rotation of the Earth causes the current in the northern hemisphere to rotate clockwise and currents in the southern hemisphere to rotate counter clockwise.
Global Pattern of Ocean Currents Homework
27)A gyre occurs when the warm equatorial surface waters move towards the poles where they cool and return back towards the equator along the sea floor.
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water 28)Wind blowing over the warm ocean water helps move the surface water and push the current along.
29)Differences in temperature and salinity power the Global Conveyor Belt.
30)Water temperature influences the currents because they move from warm to cold. Landmasses influence currents by changing or redirecting their course.
Erosion and Weathering Classwork #1
1) These statues are “dying” because they are being eroded and are not being properly protected from tourists and from nature.
2) Erosion could be stopped by using chemical resins that seal the stone and also can stabilize the altar platforms that the statues sit on so that they do not fall into the ocean. The drawback is that these measures are expensive.
3) Easter Island is located in Chile.
4) Answers will vary.
Erosion and Weathering Classwork #2
31)Both weathering and erosion change Earth’s landscape. Weathering causes rock, soil and minerals to break into small pieces. Erosion is when these small pieces are carried and deposited somewhere new. This changes both the original environment and the one that is receiving the new material.
32)Weathering is the breaking down of rock, soil and minerals into small sediments. Erosion is when these small pieces are carried and deposited somewhere new.
33)There are two common elements of weathering and erosion: wind and water.
34)Erosion relies on weathering in order to occur. For the most part, erosion will only happen after large objects have been broken into much smaller pieces. This makes it easier for wind and water to move these pieces.
35)Sediments are tiny pieces of rocks.
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water Erosion and Weathering Homework
36)Deposition is when soil and rocks are deposited or left somewhere different than where they started.
37)Weathering is occurring when water freezes in a rock crack. The expansion of the water breaks the rock into smaller pieces and sediments.
38)Sink holes and caverns are proof of underground weathering and erosion. They show that rocks and soil were broken down and then carried away.
39)Glaciers can both cause weathering and erosion. Glaciers can move sediment from one area to another. They can also change the landscape through their own formation and breaking apart. They can create valleys and cause changes in the surrounding rock and mountain formations.
www.njctl.org 6th Grade PSI The Roles of Water