Around 93 percent of the reefs on Australia's Great Barrier Reef have been bleached, and almost one quarter of them are now dead. Scholars research the sea temperatures, especially around the areas with coral reefs, to make connections to the stress of climate change, weather patterns, and other factors that are bleaching the coral reefs.

Concepts

coral reefs, acidity, latitude and longitude, carbon emissions, fossil fuels, overfishing, marine ecosystems

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Additional Tags

science

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Instructional Ideas

• Print these posters on coral bleaching to display http://www.globalcoralbleaching.org/#graphics
• Learn about the more recent third global coral bleaching that lasted from 2014 to 2016  http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2015/100815-noaa-declares-third-ever-global-coral-bleaching-event.html

Classroom Considerations

• Requires prior knowledge of the equator, tropics, and pH scales
• 11th installment of 21

Pros

• Offers two pages of tech tips for how to use the programs and data required for the lesson
• Designed for the National Science Education Standards, National Education Technology Standards, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Education Standards, Climate Literacy Principles, and Energy Literacy Principles
• Uses real data rather than fabricated data 

Cons

• None

Common Core

RST.9-10.4 RST.9-10.5 RST.9-10.7 RST.11-12.4 RST.11-12.5 RST.11-12.7