Evaluation- student questions

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1. How do the size and shape of forams vary? Vary with temperature?
2. How difficult is it to extract a “clean” sample of the foraminifera from the sediments? Hint: http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=2373&archives=true
3.  How difficult would it be to separate the different species of foraminifera if they were all the same size (< a few microns) and color?
4.  In Figure 9 there are three large N. pachyderma in the center of the image (there are others but concentrate on the three larger specimens), what direction are they coiling and what temperature of water do they indicate? (Hint: use figures 4 and 5 for help)

Figure 9: Formas seen under microscope. 20x power, 1 mm grid squares.

5. In your sediment cores, how did the proportions of the opposite coiling N. pachydermas differ as temperature changed?
6. How can the forams be used to interpret temperature change over time?
7. How did temperature change in your deep sea sediment core?
8. How does the temperature change indicated by your analysis compared with the analysis of the other half of your core by another group?
9. How did your data compare with your classmate’s analysis?
10.  How can all the class results be combined to create a larger data set?
11. What can be done to improve this study?