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Water
 Oceanography

Oceanography
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   high interest, readability grades 6 to 7
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   4.94

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    submersible, oceanographers, possibility, undersea, meteorologists, universe, itself, mission, possible, such, birth, traveled, early, predict, ocean, able
     content words:    SOund NAvigation

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Oceanography
By Patti Hutchison 		  
1     The ocean has always been a place of wonder. It is used for food, fun, and travel. Early people explored the surface. They traveled by boat to find new lands. But they weren't able to explore deep underwater.
 
2     In the late 1800's, people began to explore below the surface. The Challenger mission began to study the oceans. It used new measuring tools to do research. This was the birth of oceanography.
 
3     Oceanography is the scientific study of the ocean. But how do scientists study the ocean? What instruments do they use, and what do they tell us?
 
4     An important job of oceanographers is to map the ocean floor. This can only be done indirectly. Sonar is an instrument that is often used to tell us more about the ocean floor. Sonar stands for SOund NAvigation and Ranging.
 
5     To measure how deep it is, scientists send a sonar signal to the ocean floor. It bounces off the floor and travels back up to the surface. This is called an echo. Have you ever heard your voice echo off a distant hill? The sound bounces off the surface and back to your ears.

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