Science Partnership for Global Change Education
In-class activities
Ocean Acidification
These hands-on activities help students understand the causes and impacts of ocean acidification on marine life, especially oysters. The first activity explores how gases can affect the chemical properties of water while the second activity illustrates the impact ocean chemistry has on oyster shell dissolution. It is best to do the activities in the order listed.
1. In this activity, students will investigate how gases can affect the chemical properties of water using Bromothymol blue pH indicator solution, which changes color as the pH of a solution changes. In this activity, students will use a burning candle to simulate the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and observe the color changes that occur as carbon dioxide gets absorbed by the surrounding water. This is an easy to do and understand model for ocean acidification.
2. Dissolving Oyster Shells Activity. In this activity students will design a laboratory experiment to determine the connection between pH of a solution and its ability to dissolve oyster shells. They will place oysters into various solutions with differing pH and weigh the shells before and after a few days to determine the % loss over time as a function of pH.
This activity uses oyster shells, but any type of shell will do.