How Many Gallons of Water are in the Ocean? (Conversions) *
Math - Grades (junior high and high school)
Teachers: All of these lessons are to be used to combine math and science by using oceanography facts. These lessons can be used in a general science unit on the ocean to physical science conversion practice to marine biology/oceanography. The purpose of these problems is to allow students to learn that math and science are used together in the classroom and in oceanography.
Methods of Use:
- Daily math problem(s) on board to prepare students for the class lesson.
- File folder activity in student station for reinforcement of conversion applications.
- Review conversion problems using other large units to break the monotony of converting metric to English.
- Bonus problems on evaluation tests.
- Extension for above average students.
Questions:
- How many gallons of water are in the ocean?
- How many olympic pools would the ocean fill?
- How many times would the Olympic pools of ocean water wrap around the Earth at the equator?
- How many times would gallon "milk" jugs of ocean water wrap around the equator?
- If all the ocean water were piled on top of the U.S. how deep would the water be?
- If all the ocean water were piled on top of the land on the earth, how deep would the water be?
Answer Key:
1. How many gallons of water are in the ocean? The ocean contains 328,000,000 cubic miles of salt water. Each cubic mile can hold (5280)³ cubic feet of water. Each cubic foot can hold (12)³ cubic inches. Each gallon can hold 231 cubic inches.
Answer: 3.612 x 10²º gallons of sea water in the ocean.
Calculation: Use the normal conversions of feet to mile, inches to feet, but cube the numbers because you are dealing with volume. Take the number of cubic miles of ocean water and multiply by (5280)³ to find the number of feet in miles, then multiply again by (12)³ to find the number of inches in feet, and divide by 231 to find how many gallons will hold that many cubic inches.
2. How many olympic pools would the ocean fill? If the ocean contains 3.612 x 10²º gallons of sea water, and the olympic pool being used in the 1996 Olympic Games holds one million gallons of water, how many olympic-size pools would the ocean fill?
Answer: 3.612 x 1014 olympic pools
Calculation: Divide the number of gallons in the ocean by the number of gallons an olympic pool holds.
3. How many times would olympic pools of ocean water wrap around the Earth at the equator? If each olympic pool is 50 meters long, how many times would these pools wrap around the Earth at the equator, if the equator is 24,901.55 miles long? There are 1609.3 meters in a mile.
Answer: 4.51 x 108 Earth wraps if the olympic pools were laid down lengthwise around the equator.
Calculation: It takes 3.612 x 1014 olympic pools to hold all the ocean water calculated in Problem 1. So multiply this number by 50 meters, the length of each pool, divide by 1609.3 meters in each mile, then divide again by 24,901.55 miles around the equator.
4. How many times would gallon "milk" jugs of ocean water wrap around the equator? If the ocean holds 3.612 x 10²º gallons of sea water in common "milk" gallon containers one foot wide, and all were placed side by side, how many times would the gallons wrap around the Earth at the equator? The equator is 24,901.55 miles.
Answer: 2.75 x 10¹² (27 billion, 500 million wraps) around the Earth at the equator.
Calculation: Take the number of gallons in the ocean and multiply by how wide the gallon milk jug is, which is one foot, so you are dealing with the same number now in units of feet. Take that and divide by the number of feet in a mile, 5280, then divide again by how many miles is the distance at the equator. The final answer is how many "wraps" around the earth the gallon jugs would fit.
5. If all the ocean water were piled on top of the U.S., how deep (miles) would the water be? If all the ocean water, 328,000,000 cubic miles, were piled up on top of the United States, 3,700,000 square miles, how deep (miles) would the water be?
Answer: 88.6 miles
Calculation: Take the number of cubic miles of ocean water and divide it by the number of square miles of land in the United States. When you divide same units with exponets, you subtract the exponets. Thus, the answer is how many miles upward the water would be.
6. If all the ocean water were piled on top of the available land, 57,500,000 square miles (above sea level), on this planet, how deep (miles) would the water be?
Answer: 5.7 miles
Calculation: Divide same as in original problem 5, but use total land miles on Earth and not the United States.
Worksheet: Problems for student use.
Name ______________________________________ Subject ______________ Date ___________ Class ________________ Oceanography Conversion Worksheet
Directions:
- Calculate your answers by using conversion methods discussed in class.
- Necessary units are given to complete each problem.
- Show all work on a separate sheet of paper and put a box around your final answer showing units.
Questions:
- The ocean contains 328,000,000 cubic miles of salt water. Each cubic mile can hold (5280)³ cubic feet of water. Each cubic foot can hold (12)³ cubic inches. Each gallon can hold 231 cubic inches. How many gallons of water are in the ocean?
- If the ocean contains 3.612 x 10²º gallons of sea water, and the olympic pool being used in the 1996 Olympic Games holds one million gallons of water, how may olympic-size pools would the ocean fill?
- If each olympic pool is 50 meters long, how many times would these pools wrap around the Earth at the equator if the equator is 24,901.55 miles long? There are 1609.3 meters in a mile.
- If the ocean holds 3.612 x 10²º gallons of sea water in common "milk" gallon containers one foot wide, and all were placed side by side, how many times would the gallons wrap around the Earth at the equator? The equator is 24,901.55 miles.
- If all the ocean water, 328,000,000 cubic miles, were piled up on top of the United States, 3,618,770 square miles, how deep (miles) would the water be?
- If all the ocean water were piled on top of the land on the earth, how deep would the water be?
* From the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command Homepage