Reflection Questions

1. What did you learn about tidal observations by completing the activity? I learned how important tidal observations really are. 
2. In your own words, how are tidal observations and tidal predictions similar? How are they different? They are both similar because they are both important for those who work or live near the ocean. They are different because observations are real while predictions are based of a lot of different factors that are set to happen in the future. 
3. Why is it important to be able to predict tide levels in coastal areas? It's important because you need to see if your in danger of floods. 
4. What are some other things you would like to learn about tides? I want to know what historical people thought tides were. 

Conclusion

1. In your own words, summarize what causes tides. Discuss the effects of tidal forces and how bulges are formed. Tides are caused due to the gravitational interaction between the earth moon and sun. The tidal force depends on earth gravitational pull. Tidal forces are what tides and bulges come from. Bulges are formed when the water is pushed to different locations. 
2. In your own words, explain why humans are interested in monitoring tides. What impact do tides have on human life? What impact might tides have on other organisms? The main reason why humans are interested in tides are because of flooding reasons. We need to be ale to predict if anything bad is going to happen. Tides have a huge impact on humans because  they can cause floods. Tides impact underwater animals also. The sea animals need to be able to adapt to the constant change of their homes. 
3. In your own words, discuss how tides are monitored. Describe the old and new methods of monitoring tides. Tides used to be monitored by a strip recorder. They would put the recorder in a stilling so that it would calm the water. Now we use a sonar that collects sound waves.  
4. In your own words, compare and contrast the tidal patterns of Woods Hole, MA, Dauphin Island, AL, and location #3. Both tidal patterns for Woods Hole and Dauphin island are both Semidiurnal while Buffalo is unknown. 

Tides

Tides data

Tides Data

Questions	Woods Hole, MA	Dauphin Island, AL	Buffalo, NY
How many high and low tides occurred?	4High/4Low	2high/2low
What type of tidal pattern was observed?	Semidiurnal	Semidiurnal	unkown
What are the tidal heights?	Observed:2.42 ft. Predicted: 2.13 ft.	Observed: -0.13 ft Predicted: -0.28 ft	observed: 33.7in
How do the observed and predicted data compare?	They are both in the 2 ft. ballpark only a difference of 29.	They are both negative with a difference of 15.
Hypothesis: What may have caused any differences between the observed and predicted data?	The moon could have caused the difference in the height. Maybe they thought that the moon would be closer to earths surface.	The moon could have caused the difference in the height. Also the shape of the shore lines.	The moon could have caused the difference in the height.