Tsunami waves can be distinguished from ordinary ocean waves by many factors, including the tremendous amount of energy they carry, the great distance between their wave crests, and their capacity to travel at jetliner speeds across an entire ocean. In this interactive from NOVA Online, explore how the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami -- the deadliest in recorded history -- was triggered, how its waves traveled thousands of kilometers largely unchanged, and what happened once the waves reached coastlines both near and far from their source. Grades 6-12

"This undergraduate class is designed to introduce students to the physics that govern the circulation of the ocean and atmosphere. The focus of the course is on the processes that control the climate of the planet.AcknowledgmentsProf. Ferrari wishes to acknowledge that this course was originally designed and taught by Prof. John Marshall."

This site includes simulations of more than 40 phenomena: sea ice and CO2, climate change (230-year period), clouds and precipitation, coral reef evolution (starting 21,000 years ago), universal fire shape, fire twirl and burst behavior, tornadoes, thunderstorms, typhoons, El Niño events, greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols, polar vortex breakdown, CO2 and temperature, CFCs in the ocean, cloud evolution (7-day period), daily weather in the U.S., and more.

This OLogy activity shows kids that there are simple, but very helpful things they can do to protect the ocean -- even if they live nowhere near the water. The activity opens by introducing kids to Gabby, a future marine biologist who wants to study dolphins. Then it has a checklist of 14 ways kids can be ocean helpers that includes asking for tap water instead of bottled water and leaving plants and animals where they find them.

In this activity, students further investigate major landforms (e.g., mountains, rivers, plains, hills, oceans and plateaus). They build a three-dimensional model of a landscape depicting several of these landforms. Once they have built their model, they act as civil and transportation engineers to build a road through the landscape they have created.

In this hands-on OLogy activity, kids learn about coral reefs by building a diorama that has models of different types of coral and other sea creatures. The activity opens with Amy O'Donnell, an educator at the AMNH, introducing kids to coral polyps and reefs. The illustrated, step-by-step directions show kids how to construct a diorama that contains models of a brain coral, a sea fan, a sponge, and sea anemones. It also includes Cool Coral Facts, a look at museum dioramas, and tips for "Taking Your Diorama to the Next Level."

Corals in the deep sea? When asked to describe corals, most people think of those that make up tropical, shallow-water reefs like the Great Barrier Reef. See what scientist discovered in the North Atlantic waters deeper than 1000 meters.

This visualization shows how Mars might look with an ocean at -500m where the lowest point on Mars is about -8000m and the highest point is about 22000m. Data from The FUSE spacecraft and from the Mars Global Surveyor-MOLA instrument where used to support this theory.

This visualization shows a match render of Mars without oceans to accompany the rendering of Mars with oceans (animation id 2291).

This BioBulletin Web site takes an in-depth look at coral reefs and how they are affected by human activities -- everything from agricultural pollution and ship grounding to snorkeling and overfishing. With Florida's fragile reefs as the backdrop, the site includes text, videos, photographs, and interviews with key scientists.

Between 70 and 75% of the Earth's surface is covered with water and there exists still more water in the atmosphere and underground in aquifers. In this lesson, students learn about water bodies on the planet Earth and their various uses and qualities. They will learn about several ways that engineers are working to maintain and conserve water sources. They will also think about their role in water conservation.

In this video segment adapted from NOVA, a fossil found among the Grand Canyon's rock layers reveals the existence of a shallow sea that once covered most of western North America.

This BioBulletin Web site takes an in-depth look at horseshoe crabs and why this creature that predates the dinosaurs is now at risk. The site includes text, videos, photographs, and interviews with key scientists.

This website is a cooperative research project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), NASA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the University of New Orleans. The goal of the project is to investigate coastal change that occurred as a result of Hurricane Katrina. The site includes aerial video, still photography, and laser altimetry surveys of post-storm beach conditions that were collected August 31 and September 1, 2005 for comparison with earlier data. The comparison data can be used to refine predictive models of coastal impacts from severe storms and aid in disaster recovery and erosion mitigation.

Students learn what causes hurricanes and what engineers do to help protect people from destruction caused by hurricane winds and rain. Research and data collection vessels allow for scientists and engineers to model and predict weather patterns and provide forecasts and storm warnings to the public. Engineers are also involved in the design and building of flood-prevention systems, such as levees and floodwalls. During the 2005 hurricane season, levees failed in the greater New Orleans area, contributing to the vast flooding and destruction of the historic city. In the associated activity, students learn how levees work, and they build their own levees and put them to the test!

This course covers the development of the fundamental equations of fluid mechanics and their simplifications for several areas of marine hydrodynamics and the application of these principles to the solution of engineering problems. Topics include the principles of conservation of mass, momentum and energy, lift and drag forces, laminar and turbulent flows, dimensional analysis, added mass, and linear surface waves, including wave velocities, propagation phenomena, and descriptions of real sea waves. Wave forces on structures are treated in the context of design and basic seakeeping analysis of ships and offshore platforms. Geophysical fluid dynamics will also be addressed including distributions of salinity, temperature, and density; heat balance in the ocean; major ocean circulations and geostrophic flows; and the influence of wind stress. Experimental projects conducted in ocean engineering laboratories illustrating concepts taught in class, including ship resistance and model testing, lift and drag forces on submerged bodies, and vehicle propulsion.

This compilation video contains visualizations of Earth and Space Sciences resulting from supercomputer models. The excerpted visualizations include: Ocean Planet, El Nino, Ozone 1991, Clouds, Changes in Glacier Bay, Alaska, Biosphere, Lunar Topography from the Clementine Mission, Musculoskeletal Modeling Dynamic Simulations, Simulations of the Breakup and Dynamical Evolution of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, Convective Penetration in Stellar Interiors, Topological Features of a Compressible Plasma Vortex Sheet: A Model for the Outer Heliospheric Solar Wind, R-Aquarii Jet, The Evolution of Distorted Black Holes, Rayleigh-Taylor Instability in a Supernova, Galaxy Harassment, N-Body Simulation of the Cold Dark Matter Cosmology.

This fun Web site is part of OLogy, where kids can collect virtual trading cards and create projects with them. Here, marine biologist Melanie Stiassny introduces kids to biodiversity in the ocean. The article contains three engaging, kid-friendly sections: Diversity of Life on Earth, which has an overview of six major groups of life on Earth and challenges kids to determine the correct group for nine different life forms, including blue-green alga, spiny lobster, red mangrove, and white marlin. It All Began in the Oceans, has a time-line that tracks the development of life on Earth since the planet formed. A Whale of a Tale, takes a look at the biggest animal that has ever lived and the AMNH's star attraction.

Observing our planet from the safety of our own homes.