Ocean currents… what causes them?
Our current unit of work in Science has us investigating the links between the Ocean, our planet and ourselves. We read information about the Gulf Stream current and how this current, as it approaches Iceland, sinks to the depth of the ocean before turning South and following the coast of South America.
But how can water sink? We brainstormed a few ideas… could the season have something to do with it? Maybe water temperature?
To answer this question, we ran an interesting experiment, the results of this which you can watch below… wha happens when you mix waters of different temperatures?…
So at it turns out, cold water is denser than hot water, and as a result, sinks… Water temperature is one of the causes of ocean currents. The students were really interested in the experiment and surprised by the results.
