1. Teacher Guide
This lesson is designed to teach kids to ask a critical thinking question that you can’t just put into a search box to solve. To do that, we encourage them with smaller questions that search can help them answer. Make sure that you read the notes for each slide: they not only give you teaching tips but also provide answers and hints so you can help the kids if they are having trouble.
Remember, you can always send feedback to the Bing in the Classroom team at You can learn more about the program at bing.com/classroom and follow the daily lessons on our Partners In Learning site.
Want to extend today’s lesson? Consider using Skype in the Classroom to arrange for your class to chat with another class in today’s location. And if you are using Windows 8, you can also use the Bing apps to learn more about this location and topic; the Travel and News apps in particular make great teaching tools.
Alice Keeler is a mother of 5 and a teacher in Fresno, California. She has her B.A in Mathematics, M.S. in Educational Media Design and Technology and is currently working on a doctorate in Educational Technology with an emphasis in games and simulations. EdTech speaker, blogger, and presenter. Founder of coffeeEDU, a 1 hour conference event for educators. New Media Consortium Horizon report advisory panel member. High school math teacher for 14 years. Currently teaching pre-service teachers curriculum, instruction and technology at California State University Fresno. Teaches online for Fresno Pacific University in the Masters in Educational Technology. Passionate that kids are not failures, researches gamification in education to increase student motivation.
This lesson is designed to teach the Common Core State Standard: English Language Arts
CSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST Analyze the author's purpose in providing an explanation, describing a procedure, or discussing an experiment in a text, defining the question the author seeks to address.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

2. Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing
Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing. What conditions lead to big waves or cause small ones?
© Richard Herrmann/Minden Pictures
Having this up as kids come in is a great settle down activity. You can start class by asking them for thoughts about the picture or about ideas on how they could solve the question of the day.

3. Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing
Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing. What conditions lead to big waves or cause small ones?
Cortes Bank, a seamount roughly 100 miles off the shore from San Diego, provides an ideal environment for giant kelp forests. Just like our terrestrial forests, the kelp forests support a wide variety of life. Schools of fish, like these halfmoon sea chubs, flit between the kelp leaves eating algae and using the cover of the forest for protection from larger predators.
Depending on time, you can either have students read this silently to themselves, have one of them read out loud, or read it out loud yourself.

4. Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing
Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing. What conditions lead to big waves or cause small ones? 1
Video Search
Locate videos of surfing at Cortes Bank. 2
Map Search
Locate the Cortes Bank on Bing maps. 3
Web Search
How is the size of a wave measured? 4
What geographical features of Cortes Bank contributes to the creation of large waves? 5
Why do some beaches have little or small waves?
There are a couple of ways to use this slide, depending on how much technology you have in your classroom. You can have students find answers on their own, divide them into teams to have them do all the questions competitively, or have each team find the answer to a different question and then come back together. If you’re doing teams, it is often wise to assign them roles (one person typing, one person who is in charge of sharing back the answer, etc.)

5. Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing
Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing. What conditions lead to big waves or cause small ones? 5
Minutes
You can adjust this based on how much time you want to give kids. If a group isn’t able to answer in 5 minutes, you can give them the opportunity to update at the end of class or extend time.

6. Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing
Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing. What conditions lead to big waves or cause small ones? 1
Video Search
Locate videos of surfing at Cortes Bank. 2
Map Search
Locate the Cortes Bank on Bing maps. 3
Web Search
How is the size of a wave measured? 4
What geographical features of Cortes Bank contributes to the creation of large waves? 5
Why do some beaches have little or small waves?
You can ask the students verbally or let one of them come up and insert the answer or show how they got it. This way, you also have a record that you can keep as a class and share with parents, others.

7. Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing
Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing. What conditions lead to big waves or cause small ones? 1
Videos Search
Locate videos of surfing at Cortes Bank.
(Possible Search Queries:“cortes bank surfing”)
Sources

8. Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing
Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing. What conditions lead to big waves or cause small ones? 2
Maps Search
Locate the Cortes Bank on Bing maps.
(Possible Search Queries:”Cortes Bank” )
Sources

9. Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing
Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing. What conditions lead to big waves or cause small ones? 3
Web Search
How is the size of a wave measured?
(Possible Search Queries:”wave measured”)
Sources
Crest: The highest point of the wave.
Trough: The lowest point of the wave.
Wave height: The distance from the trough to the crest.
Wave Amplitude: The distance from the trough to the point of the undisturbed water surface. Wave amplitude is always 1/2 wave height.
Wavelength: Distance from trough to trough or crest to crest.
Significant Wave Height is defined as the height of the top third of all waves. This term is used because experience has shown that trained spotters generally overestimate wave heights. The National Weather Service forecast of wave heights are defined as "Significant Wave Heights".

10. Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing
Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing. What conditions lead to big waves or cause small ones? 4
Web Search
What geographical features of Cortes Bank contributes to the creation of large waves?
(Possible Search Queries:”Cortes bank large waves” “cortes bank features” “cortes bank geographical features” )
Sources
Especially large waves can occur because of underwater mountains. The larger the mountain, the larger the wave. As the Cortes Bank is a series of under water mountains that are quite large, the waves are very large.

11. Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing
Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing. What conditions lead to big waves or cause small ones? 5
Web Search
Why do some beaches have little or small waves?
(Possible Search Queries:”Small waves” )
Sources
Some beaches can have small waves because they have less rise and fall of the sea floor. There also may be less wind.

12. Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing
Cortes Bank is known for big waves and surfing. What conditions lead to big waves or cause small ones?
This slide is a chance to summarize the information from the previous slides to build your final answer to the question.