In this lesson, students will consider the ways in which geography is not merely an academic discipline but also a field of study with interesting and practical applications. In this lesson, students will use geographical concepts to plan a fictitious investigation with Robert Ballard to search for a long-lost ship.

Geography, earth science

Standard 17: "How to apply geography to interpret the past"
Standard 18: "How to apply geography to interpret the present and plan for the future"

Two to three hours

• Computer with Internet access
• Writing materials

Students will

• learn about Ballard's work by exploring the Web;
• hypothesize about what Ballard needs to consider before investigating a shipwreck;
• visit Web sites to learn about oceanographic features that are important to understand before searching for a shipwreck;
• list questions they would ask in trying to determine the location of a lost ship;
• research and list the things they would do once they discovered the ship's location; and
• explain why Ballard's expertise would be helpful to their investigation.

Ask students if they have seen the movie Titanic. Ask them to briefly describe what happened to the Titanic. What was the catastrophe that caused it to sink? Where was the ship when it sank? What was the ocean like when the victims were floating in it after the ship sank?

Introduce students to Robert Ballard as the deep-sea explorer who first discovered the location of the Titanic and investigated the sunken ship. Have students get a brief introduction to Robert Ballard's work by spending about 15 minutes at some or all of the following National Geographic Web sites:

Ballard & the Black Sea: The Search for Noah's Flood
Explorers-In-Residence: Robert Ballard
Return to Midway
Titanic: The Real Deal in 3-D
News: Has Ballard Found JFK's PT-109?

Ask students to name some of the factors they think Ballard or other deep-sea explorers would need to consider when looking for a sunken ship. What things would he need to know? What kind of equipment might he need? What kinds of skills might students need to acquire if they wanted to pursue a deep-sea exploration career like Ballard's? Which degrees might be helpful?

Have students go to the following Web sites that show ocean currents and geological features of the ocean. Ask them to take notes on the information they find at each Web page and explain why that information would be important in the search for a lost ship.

NOAA: Global Seafloor Topography from Satellite Altimetry (scroll down to North Atlantic/European view)
Smithsonian Institution: Ocean Planet—Ocean Currents
Smithsonian Institution: Ocean Planet—Ocean Fact Sheets

Discuss students' findings as a class, and make sure everyone understands the geographic concepts shown at the Web sites and the reasons why they are important.

Divide the class into small groups, and ask students to imagine the following scenario:

Two hundred years ago, a ship left England for the United States but never arrived at its destination. The ship was carrying many expensive goods, including gold and jewels that belonged to British royalty. No one knows where the ship went down; all we know is that it never reached its destination. It must have sunk to the bottom of the ocean with its precious cargo. We do know, however, that on its journey the ship encountered another ship traveling in the opposite direction. That ship's captain recorded the sighting in the ship's log, which is available in the National Archives. Naturally, people have an interest in finding out what happened to the ship and in recovering the historically important items it was carrying.

Tell students that they have been hired to work with Robert Ballard to direct the expedition that will search for the ship. They need to prepare their investigation by carefully focusing on how they will approach this problem.

Have groups list eight to ten questions that they would ask to get more information about the situation. Some sample questions might be:

• Where was the doomed ship seen by the second ship?
• How deep is the ocean in this location?
• In what directions do the currents travel from the location where the second ship spotted the lost ship?
• What routes were typically used on a trip from England to the United States in those days?

Discuss students' results as a class. Work as a class to arrive at the ten best questions to focus on as they work with Ballard to solve the mystery of the lost ship.

Ask students to return to their small groups to devise a plan detailing the steps they would take once they located the sunken ship. Students should base their plans on some of the things that Ballard has done on his missions. Their plans should include descriptions of the special equipment they would use, such as remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), and the ways in which they would use it. These Web sites will be helpful to students:

National Geographic: Ballard & the Black Sea—The Search for Noah's Flood
National Geographic: Return to Midway

Ask students to wrap up their plan by including a paragraph explaining why Robert Ballard's expertise will be helpful during the exploration of the sunken ship.

• Ask students to conduct more in-depth research into the types of technological equipment that Ballard uses in his investigations. Have them create timelines of this technology, from the first submersibles to the latest ones. Ask them to illustrate their timelines with sketches of the vehicles and descriptions of their capabilities and limitations.
  
  
• Have students follow the field reports from Ballard's most recent expedition to the Solomon Islands to search for John F. Kennedy's World War II patrol boat, PT-109. Do they think the boat Ballard found is PT-109?

Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Deep Water Archaeology Research Group (DeepArch)
NOAA: Ocean Explorer
National Geographic: Ballard & the Black SeaThe Search for Noah's Flood
National Geographic: Explorers-in-ResidenceRobert Ballard
National Geographic: Return to Midway