Ocean Acidification - Science

• How have humans contributed to ocean acidification?

Humans are producing too much Carbon Dioxide

• How is ocean acidification affecting organisms in the ocean?

There are fewer of the minerals that they need

• Why is the rate of ocean acidification alarming to scientists?

Because if this keeps going on the oceans will be too toxic to go in

• What can you do to reduce the effects of ocean acidification?

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

Drive less
Ocean acidification over time

• How could we do an experiment in our classroom that investigates the effects of acidity on shellfish and coral? (Hint: both are made from calcium carbonate, what could we use to model/instead of their shells? Google!)

Design a small experiment that would give use more evidence for the dangers of ocean acidification on these animals. What would you need, what would you do, and what would any results tell you? (I will pick a few of the best explained experiments for us to actually do in class)  You can include images if you like.

Instead of their shells we can use chalk, limestone or marble since they’re all made out of calcium carbonate.

We could use a sodastream to produce the carbonated seawater and then put the chalk or limestone in and expose them to different levels of acidity and see the change after an amount of time.

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For our experiment we put eggs in different types of liquids.

One is in coke, another in vinegar, and the last is in regular water.

The coke and vinegar are to represent the different levels of acidity in the ocean.

We are using eggs to represent the coral and shells because egg shells also contain calcium carbonate.

  

Coke -

After sitting in the coke for several days the shell was cracked and the colour of it had darkened. It had also rotted on the inside and the shell is now harder to break than a regular egg shell.

Vinegar -

There wasn’t much left of the actual shell after a few days. It had completely lost it’s brown colour and kind of looks like a snake’s egg. It is now bouncy and squishy.

Water -

No change.

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My response:

My evidence:

97% of scientists say that global warming is real.

https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

My response:

My evidence:

It’s summer in the southern hemisphere so it must be winter in the northern, that’s why it is cold and snowing.

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