 Hello, my name is Brian Cannelly, and I'm the editor of Tan Books Foundations of Science Curriculum. If you've already completed one of the other units and you watched these videos, we're already acquainted, and you know what these videos are all about. But the great thing about this series is that it can be completed in any order. So perhaps this unit on Oceans is your first. If that's the case, let me give you a little background on our goals and our purpose with these videos, because they're going to be a little different from the book and the workbook that you've completed. Especially in those, we tried to teach you science, focusing in on all the beautiful and great things that are found in our oceans. But in this video series, we're going to shift our focus a bit. Here, it'll be my job to take something you learn from the text and use it to transition to a broader point about the world, more specifically about God and His truths that lay hidden all around us. We'll still be talking about our planet, of course, and reviewing some of the things that you learned in the text. But we'll use that discussion to make deeper points about God, about the Catholic faith, about saints, about virtues and vices, and so much more. The beauty of God's world is that everything, even the smallest things, point back to Him. And that includes a lot of the amazing things we learned about in this text. So if you're ready, let's dive beneath the sea and discover what mysteries are hidden there. I know whenever we do these videos together, I always say how much I enjoyed the material in the book. But I promise that what I'm about to say next is true. This book on oceans was my favorite. I truly mean that. Now, I really like the one on animals, and I think our unit on space is going to be a lot of fun too when I get to editing that one. But there was something about this book on oceans that truly captivated me. I've always been fascinated by the sea. It's so beautiful. It's so big. It's so mysterious. Speaking of being mysterious, did you know that we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the bottom of the ocean? In a sense, even though our oceans are right here on earth, we have more trouble getting down into the deepest, darkest depths of the ocean than we do getting up to the moon. Now, that's incredible if you think about it. Maybe I love this book so much because I love going to the beach each summer with my family. I grew up in the Carolinas, and I still live here today. I may be biased, but I think we have some of the most beautiful beaches in the country here in the Carolinas. The memories I make there with my family are times I'll never forget. Jumping in the waves, building sand castles, going fishing, playing beach games. If I just smell a whiff of suntan lotion, all those memories come flooding back to me. When I was a kid, like you, I just associated the beach with fun. But as an adult now, I also look forward to my beach trips because being near the sea can't help but draw my mind to God. If you're a person of faith, it's difficult to stand before something so massive and so beautiful and not marvel at it and not marvel at the beauty of God. Of course, we can see his beautiful creations all over. I love to walk through a forest or hike through the mountains, for example. But there's just something different about standing before the ocean and hearing those waves crash on the shore over and over again. It does something to my mind and my soul, lifting them toward God so that I can appreciate all his gifts. In a sense, I feel closer to God when I'm closer to the ocean. Now, with that sentiment in mind, I want to make a point here in our opening chapter about how important it is to remain close to God, to stick to God as you grow older. Now, why did I use the word stick there? Well, when I use that word, I don't mean like a stick that falls off a tree. I mean stick like being sticky. When you go somewhere crowded with lots of people, your mom might say, stick close to me. That just means stay with her. Sticky glue or gum can bind things together. So it's like you have glue between you and your mom. You stick to her. In this opening chapter, we learned a lot about water, specifically learning about some of the properties of water. Do you remember what they were? There were four of them. The four qualities were that water is cohesive, that it's adhesive, that solid water is less dense than liquid water, and finally that water has a high heat capacity. Let's talk about the first two qualities, cohesiveness and adhesiveness. These two qualities are why I'm bringing up the word sticky because both of them have to do with things being sticky. But the two words have a subtle difference. With cohesiveness, it means that water molecules stick to each other. This means water is drawn to water. So if you put a drop of water on a kitchen counter or a table, and then you put another one near it, assuming they're close enough, you can actually watch them pull towards each other and turn into one larger drop. They're drawn to each other like a magnet. Now adhesiveness means that water likes to stick not just to each other, but to other things as well. So if you rub some water along your arm, some of it will stay on your arm instead of just immediately falling to the floor. Both of these are important qualities of water and they help us make life on earth possible. Now, when I read about these qualities of water, it made me think about how God is cohesive and adhesive as well. What do I mean by that? Well, think about the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One God, three divine persons. The Holy Trinity is cohesive, meaning the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit stick together. Though they're three separate persons, they do everything together. There's no separating them. Still more, God is adhesive and that he likes to stick to other things. Most of all, you. God is our loving Father who will never leave us. No matter where we go, he's going to remain close to us. God is always by your side, but we have to make sure that we stick close to God as well and not lose that adhesion we have with him through sin. One of the ways he is visibly present and by our side and how we can remain close to him is through his church. Just like the ocean is that massive body of water found all over the earth, the church is a massive body, the body of Christ, that can be found all over the earth as well. When I talk about the church, there's one more point to be made about the qualities of water. The fourth quality of water we mentioned was that it has a high heat capacity. Do you remember what that means? High heat capacity means that water heats up and cools down very slowly. It takes a lot of energy to heat up. So for example, if your mom boils a pot of water on the stove, yes, it gets hot, but it'll take a few minutes to get that way. Whereas if you stuck a piece of paper in a fire, it will, in a fire, it'll immediately catch fire. But with water, it will have to sit on that burner for a few minutes before it boils. The ocean works much the same way, but of course it's much more water than it can fit in just your mom's kitchen pot. So it takes even more time to heat up. The more water there is, the more heat you need to warm it up. That's why if you go to the ocean in June, let's say, even though it may be warm outside, the ocean may still be a little bit chilly. It hasn't been summer long enough to heat up the ocean. If you jump in a few months later, let's say in August, it will be a little bit warmer. You'll be able to feel that. The ocean has slowly heated up over those two or three months that have passed. So in this way, the ocean actually helps regulate temperatures on land, or at least those close to the ocean. We read in the text how cities and towns near the sea don't vary as much in temperature as those more inland. I believe we saw a comparison between Miami, which is right on the coast in Florida, and a town in Kansas in the middle of the country. Miami had a 13 degree difference from its coldest to its warmest day of the year, while the town in Kansas had a change of 59 degrees. If you want to think about it this way, the ocean slows down the change in temperature. As we move toward winter, if you are not near the coast, the temperature will drop fast enough that it gets very cold. But being near the ocean, which holds the heat of the sun, the temperature won't drop as fast. The ocean actually holds the temperature up. It's like pulling on the temperature, keeping it steadier. Okay, so let's return to our image of the church being like the ocean. If we remain close to God's church, our life will be far different than if we drift away. Because of original sin, we have a tendency toward sinful things and actions. And the more we fall away from the church, the more susceptible we are to our sinful impulses. You might say the temperature in our souls goes down. It plummets and gets very cold if we leave the church and stop receiving the sacraments and then give in to sin. But if we remain near the church, it keeps the temperature in our souls up, feeling the burning love of God. If water has a high heat capacity, which we learned, you might say the church has a high grace capacity. There is an ocean of grace in the church. And the more we remain close to Holy Mother church, the more grace we keep in our souls and our souls don't grow cold. Okay, that concludes our first lesson here in our units on ocean. But we obviously have a long way to go. So come back for chapter two and we can discuss the freshwater systems of earth such as rivers and streams and lakes and use them as a way to explain how the church carries us through the river of history. I'll see you then.