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Highway Lab Report Sheet

The student mapped the locations where Nike shoes were lost at sea and where they were later found to identify which ocean currents carried them. The shoes likely encountered the North Pacific Gyre and other nearby currents as they primarily stayed near North America for years before some began drifting to China in 1993. While most shoes traveled together, one batch was an outlier, possibly having been separated from the others. The student hypothesized that the shoes' greater mass allowed them to travel faster than rubber ducks or bath toys of similar experiments.

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Heidi Edwards
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2K views4 pages

Highway Lab Report Sheet

The student mapped the locations where Nike shoes were lost at sea and where they were later found to identify which ocean currents carried them. The shoes likely encountered the North Pacific Gyre and other nearby currents as they primarily stayed near North America for years before some began drifting to China in 1993. While most shoes traveled together, one batch was an outlier, possibly having been separated from the others. The student hypothesized that the shoes' greater mass allowed them to travel faster than rubber ducks or bath toys of similar experiments.

Uploaded by

Heidi Edwards
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Highways of the Sea Lab Report

Instructions: In the Highways of the Sea Lab, you will chart the traveling shoes and predict how ocean
currents move. Record your findings below. You will submit your completed lab report.

(30 points possible)

Name and Title:

Include your name, teacher’s name, date, and name of lab.


Heidi Edwards
Ms. Henderson
August 27, 2022

Objective(s):

What was the main purpose of the lab?


Map the locations of where the Nike shoes were lost and where they were found at sea,
and identify which pecan currents may have carried them to their last destination.

Hypothesis: (2 points)

This should be a prediction that can be tested. You may use the if/then format to write your
hypothesis.
If currents are strong, then the Nike shoes will be carried throughout places in the sea.

Procedure: (8 points)

On the map below, locate and mark the locations of shoes provided in the data table. You may
print your map and mark it by hand or copy it to a program to edit. Label each data point in
chronological order from 1 to 11 on the map and connect the data points with arrows.
Data:

Conclusion: (20 points)

1. Define the following terms: (2 points)


a. Current is the motion of the ocean
b. Gyre is a ringlike system of ocean currents

2. Using the map and the data points, what can you conclude about the general pathway
the shoes took? (2 points)
The shoes stayed in the area around the United States and Canada except in
January of 1993 to 1993 they began to drift to China.
3. Compare the pathway of the shoes to the map showing the major surface currents in the
Pacific. Which current(s) did the shoes most likely encounter? Add these to your map
above. (2 points)
The Nike shoes probably encountered the North Pacific Gyre and other close by
currents like Kurodhio or the North Equatorial.
4. Which data point is an outlier? What may have happened to this batch of shoes? (2
points)
The 10th data point is an outlier in the graph. Some of the shoes stayed while
others drifted off.
5. How fast did the shoes travel? (4 points)
a. From where the shoes spilled (48°N, 161°W) to where they first made landfall
(49°N, 126°W), how many kilometers did they travel? How many days did they
take to travel that distance? (You can use November 30 as the date found). What
was their rate of travel in kilometers per hour?
The Nike shoes traveled 2,557 kilometers in 187 days, so their rate of travel
is 1.75 kilometers per hour.
b. From where the shoes spilled (48°N, 161°W) to where they were found in 1996
(54°N, 133°W), how many kilometers did they travel? How many days did they
take to travel that distance (use April 30 as the date found)? What was their rate
of travel in kilometers per hour?
In 1996, the shoes traveled 2,052 kilometers and took about 2,165 days so
their rate of travel was 25.32 kilometers per hour.

6. The shoes traveled faster than the rubber ducks and bath toys. Propose a hypothesis to
explain the why the shoes traveled faster, and develop a plan to test your prediction. (2
points)
I believe that since the shoes have more mass than the ducks and bath toys the
shoes have a much quicker rate of travel. I can test this by placing the shoe and a
duck toy in a long bucket of water and use some type of blower to see which one
reaches the end first.
7. The shoes floated low in the water, while the ducks floated high in the water. How could
this fact have changed the course and speed of both the shoes and the ducks? (2 points)
The Nike shoes move a lot faster underwater which will make them faster than the
duck toys because the shoes might not be affected by the weather unlike the
surface where wind occurs. The wind could cause the duck toys to move in a
different direction or slow them down.
8. Give a possible explanation why some shoes drifted northward along the coast while
others drifted southward. (2 points)
Some of the Nike shoes could’ve been separated and could’ve been drifted away
by other currents causing several shoes to end up in the North and some in the
South.
9. Your friend has invited you onto her family’s boat for a day of fishing. After lunch on the
boat, your friend wants to throw a bag of trash overboard. After researching the impact
currents have on objects, explain what you would do in this situation and why. (2 points)
I would take the trash bag out of the water and discuss with my friend about
ocean currents and how it caused the trash to circulate around the ocean and sink
deeper into the ocean. I will also explain to her how it can harm animals by
confusing them with their food which could potentially harm or kill sea animals.

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