Data to accompany "Exploring the Complexity of Ocean Acidification: An Ecosystem Comparison of Coastal pH Variability"

The goal of this project was to create a science lesson at the middle school level with data illustrating the variablilty of pH and temperature in nature. The lesson allows students to interpret pH data and gain knowledge of abiotic and biotic processes that contribute to pH differences between tropical, temperate and polar marine ecosystems. Students use what they have learned to interpret data from a 'mystery' site and develop a hypothesis as to which ecosystem the unknown data was collected from. The full cirriculum is described in Kapsenberg, L, AL Kelley, LA Francis, and SB Raskin (2015) Exploring the complexity of ocean acidification: an ecosystem comparison of coastal pH variability. Science Scope 39(3): 51-60. doi: 10.2505/4/ss15_039_03_51 This dataset contains an Excel workbook with five worksheets: A "Readme" tab with citations for additional reading and data attribution.Three time-series of pH and temperature from coastal locations: a temperate kelp forest in the Santa Barbara Channel (Spring season, 2 months, 20 min interval). a coral reef near the island of Moorea, Tahiti (Summer season, 3 weeks, 30 min interval), and the polar ocean of Cape Evans, McMurdo Bay, Antarctica (Spring/Summer, 6 months, bi-hourly interval). A fourth worksheet contains data for a "mystery site" for student examination. Data for the study were contributed by the Santa Barbara Coastal LTER, Moorea Coral Reef LTER and the G. Hofmann lab (University of California, Santa Barbara). Additional pH data are available from both LTER sites. Antarctic data in this dataset are also available from NSF's Biological and Chemical Oceanographic Data Management Office (see Cape Evans Mooring, 2012).