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"Some of the planet's most beautiful and diverse ecosystems are at risk. With temperatures on the rise, coral reefs are at greater risk for coral bleaching. Using ocean observing system data from NOAA's National Data Buoy Center, this classroom activity examines ocean temperatures off Puerto Rico to see how coral reefs are being impacted and predict what's on the horizon. Brought to you by Sea Grant's Bridge website and COSEE-NOW. This activity was developed in response to the 2005 massive coral bleaching event in the Caribbean caused by high sea surface temperatures. Using ocean observing system data, water temperatures can be monitored to evaluate the likeliness of other bleaching events. Via the COSEE-NOW online community, we were able to receive valuable feedback on making the graph of water temperature more user-friendly and expanding the discussion questions to evoke some higher level thinking from students. This activity has been demonstrated to teachers at the National Marine Educators Association conference and Virginia Sea Grant professional development institutes; and to graduate students in several different settings. http://www2.vims.edu/bridge/DATA.cfm?Bridge_Location=archive0406.html"

Background: The 10 minute education film is part of Healthy Ocean, Healthy Humans a project of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. The film was produced for aquariums, museums, schools, and theaters - to help people understand that all life on Earth, including our own, depends on the ocean.

Ice Sheets and Sea Level Rise By: Claire L. Parkinson, Oceans and Ice Branch, Code 971, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt MD 20771, e-mail: clairep@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov Exercise: Determine the amount that sea level would rise, averaged around the globe, in response to the complete melting of (a) the Greenland ice sheet, (b) the Antarctic ice sheet, and (c) both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

Defining normal Gardeners, meteorologists, businesses, weather junkies and others will get answers to some of these questions in July, when NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) releases the latest version of an official weather product called the U.S. Climate Normals. Updated each decade, the U.S. Climate Normals are 30-year averages of many pieces of weather information collected from thousands of weather stations nationwide. Each time they are updated, an old decade is dropped, and a new one added. Starting in July, when you hear that a day was hotter, or colder, or rainier than normal, that "normal" will be a little different from what it was in the past.