Oceans
Thanks for joining us!
This episode was written by Jean and voiced by Kara and T.
Episode art was drawn by Jean.
It was originally released in October 2024.
— We love these books about oceans —
Click on each photo for a link to the book
— Draw the ocean using color resist! —
1) Gather your materials: Paper, paintbrush, watercolor paint, water, wax crayons, course salt
2) Draw whatever ocean scene you'd like on the white paper.
3) Paint with watercolor paint over your crayon drawing. The wax crayons should show through and resist being covered by the paint.
4) While the paint is still wet, sprinkle the course salt on top to make it a seawater painting!
Dive with Nat Geo Kids’s Scuba Sam —
Learn all about fish and ocean creatures with Scuba Sam!
— Oceans Episode Summary —
Can you tell where the oceans are on a globe or map? —
Globes represent our plant Earth. There are usually green parts that represent land and blue parts that represent the water.
There is a lot more blue than green – water covers about 70% of the earth.
The biggest bodies of water on Earth are oceans.
All of the oceans actually flow into each other, you could even say that there is really just one ocean on Earth. But we’ve divided them into five areas and given them names: Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic, and Southern Oceans.
The United States touches the Atlantic Ocean on the East coast and the Pacific Ocean on the West cost.
What color is the ocean and why? —
The ocean isn’t just one shade of blue, as it looks on a map. There are many different shades.
The reason that the ocean looks blue has to do with light. Light actually contains many colors; you see them in a rainbow. When light shines into water, the drops of water reflect blue light – meaning the color blue is bounced out and we can see it.
In some areas of the world, the ocean water looks green or turquoise. That water is being colored by the tiny organisms -plants or animals- that exist there.
In the daytime the ocean might seem to be bluer than at night when it looks darker. Sometimes a storm over the ocean makes the water look very dark blue.
Despite how the ocean may look from afar, it is not flat! —
Wind travels over the water and causes the water to move. Lighter winds make gentle waves. Far out in the ocean, there can be rolling waves, a constant up and down movement of the water. Strong winds make large waves that can be as tall as a building. And when the wind is strong near the land, it makes those big waves that crash loudly on the sand.
The shore is the place where the ocean comes onto the land. We also call it the beach. We see the waves there breaking over onto the sand and pushing the water up the beach. Then the water goes back down the sand into the ocean.
And the ocean water doesn’t always meet the beach at the same place – when it comes far up the beach, it’s called high tide. Maybe you’ve had to move your beach chairs so they don’t get swept away during high tide! At low tide, the water doesn’t come up as high. This is sometimes when we look for starfish or urchins in tide-pools.
The top of the ocean, the part that we can see, is called the surface.
What’s going on under the surface? —
Deep down under the surface of the water, there is land. It is the ocean floor.
It is hard to imagine how far down the ocean water goes. And some parts of the ocean floor are deeper than others! Some parts can be deeper than any building is tall, even skyscrapers. The deepest place in the ocean is called the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean.
The ocean floor is sandy and rocky. Some plants can grow from the ocean floor if they get enough sunlight, such as seaweed and kelp. But in the very deepest oceans, there is little light. The sunlight cannot reach down so far. So fewer plants grow. It also gets very, very cold.
Many things live in the ocean – can you name some? Fish, whales, sharks, turtles, dolphins! And many animals live on the ocean floor, such as the octopus, crabs, and lobsters.
But it is in the very deepest areas of the ocean, where there is little light, that some really different animals live. One really cool fish is a lantern fish. It has special organs on its body that cause it to glow in colors. That type of glowing is called bioluminescence.
Another fish that lives deep in the ocean is called the angler fish. This fish has a thin fin over its head and on the end of it is a little bulb that lights up because of the bacteria inside it. It looks a bit like a fishing pole. This light bulb attracts the angler fish prey, the food he needs to eat. Really unusual.
The ocean can be very helpful to humans —
A lot of our food comes from the oceans. Fishermen go very far away from land in large fishing boats to catch so many kinds of fish for food. Maybe you have eaten shrimp, or salmon, or fish tacos.
Seaweed and sea salt come from the ocean. To make sea salt, sea water is collected in large areas called evaporation ponds, where the water is not deep. The water is allowed to evaporate, which means it turns into vapor and goes up into the sky where it collects into clouds. And after the water has gone, sea salt is left behind, which is collected and processed for people to use in food.
Another way that people use oceans is for transportation. What kinds can you think of? Sailboats, motorboats, ferries, submarines, kayaks…
Large cargo ships bring all kinds of things around the world. For example, clothing that is made in VietNam, toys made in China, even cars made in Japan can travel to the United States across the Pacific Ocean on ships.
Some people who live near water ride on boats every day. Ferries are boats that carry a lot of people and sometimes cars to different towns and cities.
People are getting power from the oceans. Large windmills are being installed in the ocean. The windmills have 3 blades. The wind over the ocean turns the blades, and in a complicated process, the energy those turning blades make is turned into electricity.
And of course, people use the oceans for recreation, meaning to have fun! People love to go to the beach on a warm day and swim in the cool ocean water. Some people like to boogie board or ride a surfboard over the waves. Some adventurous people have learned to scuba dive deep into the water, with an air tank on their backs for breathing and a mask over their eyes to see clearly. Sailboats are a way to get out onto the ocean and be moved by the wind.
We must be careful about taking care of the oceans. Chemicals and trash in the water can make plants and animals sick. This is called pollution. We can help by being sure to clean up your things after a day at the seashore.