Welcome to Louisiana Sea Grant’s
Ocean Commotion Online 2020

Ear stones in fish – the scientific name is otoliths – detect sound and vibration and help fish orient themselves in the water. For biologists, they help give the precise age of the fish.

Join best-selling children’s author Happy Johnson for a reading of Backyard Bayou. Learn about the importance of Louisiana wetlands, how they have been changing and what students can do to help.

Learn about the power of water and how it can carry debris off your roof or trash from your yard into our streams and bayous.

Watersheds aren’t sheds made of water, they’re areas of land where water collects and makes its way into waterways. Louisiana is part of the Mississippi River Watershed, which is the fourth largest in the world.

Have you ever sat outside at dusk and just listened to the cacophony surrounding you? Chances are, you were probably listening to at least one of the 26 different frog and toad species that call Louisiana home.

Follow the journey of Styrofoam cups underwater and investigate the relationship between depth and pressure in the ocean.

Giant Salvinia, a non-native vegetation, is overtaking some parts of Louisiana. This causes big problems for navigation and the ecosystem. Learn more about this invasive species and how the state is managing it.

The book Oh No! Hannah’s Swamp is Changing introduces students to an ever-growing problem of nonindigenous, or non-native, species facing Louisiana.

The objective of this video is to understand how fish breathe under water. Viewers can recreate the experiment using items found in the average kitchen.

Hurricanes impacts can be far reaching. Explore how widespread the impact of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina were by looking at how it could affected other parts of the United States.

Temperature and salinity affect the density of water. Using common household items, conduct your own experiment to see which plays a larger role and compare your results to the video.

Explore some of the exhibits and STEAM activities at the Louisiana Art & Science Museum.

Learn about exciting career opportunities in the sciences and see many of the thrilling places coastal and ocean scientists visit.

Learn about the awesome science of ecosystem biodiversity, terrapin turtles and the American alligator.

(WARNING: This video contains the remains of turtles and alligators.)

Conduct a backyard survey to see where mosquitoes may be breeding on your property. Report your findings as part of a citizen science program.

In this lesson, students will learn about how phytoplankton in Lake Pontchartrain fluctuate throughout the year and how the opening of the Bonnet Carré Spillway can affect those cycles.

Air pollution is caused by particles suspended in the atmosphere. Learn how to make a pollution catcher from everyday items typically found around the home.

Assistant Professor Giulio Mariotti and graduate student Shamim Murshid, both in the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, demonstrate how a delta works.

Power an easy-to-make boat with nothing more than a rubber band. Materials for boat building can be found (and tested) at home.

In this lesson, students will learn about coastal estuarine habitats, how salinity can vary vertically in a given place and why parts of Lake Pontchartrain aren’t fully mixed.

Evidence of loggerhead and green sea turtles can be found on some of Louisiana’s barrier islands. The public can help ensure the longevity of the species by preventing plastic and other waste from entering the environment and becoming marine debris that turtles often mistake for food.

Paddlefish are one of the most distinctive freshwater fishes in North America. In Louisiana, this species is primarily found throughout most of the major river systems and in large impoundments. This video provides on overview of how paddlefish spawn as part of the Native Fish in the Classroom project.

(WARNING: This video contains images of dissected fish.)

The video teaches elementary school-aged children how to be safe on a boat and the importance of wearing lifejackets.

In this lesson, students will use quadrant grids (elementary school) or coordinate planes (middle school) to document dramatic changes that happened to Wax Lake Delta over the span of a month. Students will then hypothesize what has caused this change.

Learn about ocean acidification and conduct your own acidification activity.

High performance computing can model and analyze coastal disasters like hurricanes and the dead zone so scientist and local leaders can better understand risks and potential impacts.

The water we use – for laundry, dishes or even the toilet – has to go somewhere. This video shows how aerated sewage treatment systems clean water.