Oceans... so what is right?

[This Busy Mom]

My dd is learning the 4 major oceans... so we started talking about how some people say there are 5. I looked it up and found a site that listed 7 (their GeoSafari globe has 6).

So, the basics are:

Pacific Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
Indian Ocean
Artic Ocean

Then some people include the Southern Ocean.

Or they are listed as:
North Pacific Ocean
South Pacific Ocean
North Atlantic Ocean
South Atlantic Ocean
Indian Ocean
Artic Ocean
Antartic Ocean

So... we just talked about all the different names :shrug

[SueQ]

:scratch :think

So, the basics are:

Pacific Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
Indian Ocean
Artic Ocean


The above is what I learned in school. Hmm. I don't know which list I would use in teaching them to my boys. Maybe both! :lol I would maybe say something like:
"The names of the four major oceans are:
So, the basics are:

Pacific Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
Indian Ocean
Artic Ocean

And Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are also divided into north and south so you have a North Atlantic and South Atlantic and a North Pacific and Sout Pacific Ocean." :shrug

[Mama Calidad]

Oh, that's rich! We (in general) think we know so much, but we can't even figure out how many oceans there are. :/ There were four when I was in school. :crazy

[jujubnme]

Interesting... Yeah, I only learned the four when we were in school. Wikipedia has an interesting article on this. Looks the the Southern Ocean was defined in 2000 by the International Hydrographic Organization, but is not universally accepted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean

[Teribear]

Well just to throw another kink into the works, we just saw the IMAX production "The Living Sea" and their take on it is that there is just ONE Ocean. That makes perfect sense if you think about it. There is nowhere that the ocean logically divides, it flows around all land masses and in that sense there is truly only ONE ocean. We're going with that and then talking about how different parts of the world call the ocean near them different things so we'll probably end up discussing all 7 or 8 named parts of the world ocean.

[ServingGod]

Well just to throw another kink into the works, we just saw the IMAX production "The Living Sea" and their take on it is that there is just ONE Ocean. That makes perfect sense if you think about it. There is nowhere that the ocean logically divides, it flows around all land masses and in that sense there is truly only ONE ocean. We're going with that and then talking about how different parts of the world call the ocean near them different things so we'll probably end up discussing all 7 or 8 named parts of the world ocean.


:laughtears I drove my teacher's crazy in elementary school when I couldnt figure out why there were 4 oceans...I just saw one...with land stuck here and there.

[domesticzookeeper]

North Pacific Ocean
South Pacific Ocean
North Atlantic Ocean
South Atlantic Ocean
Indian Ocean
Artic Ocean
Antartic Ocean


That's how I learned them :). I mean logically, yes, there is only one ocean. But from a practicality standpoint, dividing them up makes a lot of sense. Just don't ask me where one begins and another ends :giggle

[This Busy Mom]

Well just to throw another kink into the works, we just saw the IMAX production "The Living Sea" and their take on it is that there is just ONE Ocean.

Actually, that's what I decided today ;) . I didn't want to confuse my easily confused dd, though, lol... so we just went over some of the variety of names.