Skip to content
Ellis Abel Learns.

In my own words · Normal, IL

Why I love the ocean

An orange-and-white Saildrone autonomous research vessel under sail on the water near San Francisco Bay. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Oceans" page — read by families in Normal, IL.
An orange-and-white Saildrone autonomous research vessel under sail on the water near San Francisco Bay. NASA/JPL-Caltech · Public domain
  • Most of it has never been seen.
  • It moves heat all the way around the world.
  • There are mountains down there.

You can love the ocean in Normal.

What it really is

The ocean covers most of the planet and moves its heat.

Three things to try today

  1. Find out how deep the deepest part is.
  2. Compare that to the tallest mountain.
  3. Find out how much has been mapped.

For the grown-up reading this

Normal has a population of about 54,664. The question is not whether Normal, IL has children who love the ocean. It is whether anyone told them that counts as something.

Less of the seafloor is mapped in detail than the surface of Mars.

If the kid who loves this is a girl

Read what one popular teacher said to one little girl who took out the classroom trash without being asked — and what that girl did with the rest of her life.

Girls are great at math — Normal, IL →

Love something else too

A USGS cartographer bends over a light table, scribing contour lines by hand onto a topographic map separation. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Maps" page — read by families in Normal, IL.Why I love mapsA worker checks a replacement distillation assembly for the space station's water recycling system in a processing facility. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Recycling" page — read by families in Normal, IL.Why I love recyclingAn aerial photograph of the Vehicle Assembly Building under construction at Kennedy Space Center, its steel frame still open to the sky. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Building" page — read by families in Normal, IL.Why I love buildingAn aerial view of construction crews and barges working to complete the westbound span of the Indian River causeway bridge. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Bridges" page — read by families in Normal, IL.Why I love bridgesThe four-wheeled Artemis Jr. prototype rover, topped with a solar array, driving across a grass field beside the Operations and Checkout Building. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Cars" page — read by families in Normal, IL.Why I love carsA humpback whale launching most of its body out of the ocean in a breach, with spray flying off its flippers. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Whales" page — read by families in Normal, IL.Why I love whalesA bee crawling over the yellow centre of a wildflower while pollinating it on Kennedy Space Center property. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Insects" page — read by families in Normal, IL.Why I love bugsA scientist looks through a microscope at human breast cancer cells in a cell bioassay laboratory, with an automated liquid handling robot behind her. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Medicine" page — read by families in Normal, IL.Why I love doctors

Near Normal

Why I love the ocean, everywhere in the US · All things to love · STEM jobs you could do · Summer camps in Normal