Scott Donnelly

This is the fourth blog post in this series dealing with seawater chemistry and global maritime trade. In this classroom activity students predict the buoyancy (and hence stability) of a merchant cargo ship based on interpretation of seawater surface salinity values.

This is the third blog post of the seawater-oceanic shipping series. Like the previous two posts (first and second) this classroom activity:

The first blog post of this seawater-oceanic shipping series deals with an introductory classroom activity that challenges students to predict how the composition and temperature of seawater influences a ship's buoyancy.

Maritime shipping is the backbone of global commerce and trade. In 2020 a mind-boggling 1.9 billion metric tons (4,188,782,981,513 pounds) of cargo criss-crossed Earth's largest geographical features- the expansive, featureless oceans and seas (1).

Structure. Structure. Structure. As we all know as chemistry educators, structure is the 'go to' concept when trying to figure out why molecules do what molecules do.