What’s the longest creature in the sea? Why do clownfish swim in groups? What makes tsunamis different from tidal waves? Discover the answers to these questions – and many more! – via your iPod with the Science and the Sea podcast.
Recorded as a radio show, Science and the Sea is available to aspiring oceanographers, climatologists, and marine biologists on the web or via podcast subscription. While the podcast’s most popular episodes (on topics like bootlace worms, sea grasses, and the ocean’s sponge-like qualities) are always available, Science and the Sea offers only ten episodes at a time – but each week brings a new episode! The topics range in complexity and specificity from horseshoe crabs to challenges in tracking storms over the Atlantic, and can appeal to audiences of curious upper elementary students to adults well versed in all things ocean-related…
The educational value of Science and the Sea is perhaps quite obvious – students can learn about ocean species, ocean systems, and the relationship between these things through a wide variety of lenses. In considering the interrelatedness between all of these things, students will learn to examine the things that they learn within a global context. While marine biology and oceanography can easily be place-based and relate to personal experience if you live within a few hours of the coastline, some of the topics that apply to nearby coastline also apply to coasts around the world. Students can relate what they learn to their own experiences with the ocean, and can then apply this knowledge to their understanding of the global concept of oceans.
Listening to Science and the Sea can introduce a rich and seemingly endless topic of study into your family, and might even inspire future trips to the beach or an aquarium. Oh, and the longest creature in the sea is a bootlace worm, clownfish stick together to protect their food from other groups of clownfish, and tsunamis are quite different from tidal waves because they are unexpected and unpredictable. These answers, and many more interesting facts about the sea, can be heard each week on this free podcast.
Science and the Sea is a production of The University of Texas Marine Science Institute on the Gulf of Mexico in Port Aransas, Texas. Learn more at www.scienceandthesea.org.