In this lesson students investigate unusual or unique features that characterize the northwestern Hawaiian Islands and their associated deep-sea environment. As a result of this activity, students will be able to describe the movement of tectonic plates in the Hawaiian archipelago region, describe how a combination of hotspot activity and tectonic plate movement could produce the arrangement of seamounts observed in the Hawaiian archipelago, and describe the importance and distinguishing features of valuable corals. They will also discuss the reasons for the endangered status of the Hawaiian monk seal and describe preliminary findings from the 2002 Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Expedition.

Summary

Subject keyword(s)	Astronomy, Biological oceanography, Earth science, Geology, Geoscience, Life Science, Oceanography, Physical oceanography, Physical sciences, Science, Space Science, Space sciences
Grade level	Middle School
Resource type	Instructional Material
Resource format	application, application/pdf
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