Wednesday, September 01, 2004

Who lost the ocean?

I know the globe is constantly changing, it becomes evident every olympic year when I don't recognize the names of 1/4 of the countries. But why didn't someone tell me that we had lost an ocean? Geography had never been my strong suit; I have a general idea of where things are at; the closer to where I live they are the more I can tell you about them. For example I know that Ohio is south of Michigan, but is Kentucky south of Tennessee? I just don't know. I know they are in the same general area. Give me a wooden puzzle with the capitals written on the wood I can put everything right where it belongs, even foreign countries (old foreign countries not these made up ones for the Olympics) I do believe. I am good at that, I can remember the facts, just not where they go. So today I am quizzing Megan on the spelling of the continents and oceans for her quiz at school tomorrow. I said Antarctic Ocean, and she laughed. She told me Antarctica was a continent not an ocean. I held that Antarctica was a continent and Antarctic was the ocean. She kept laughing (imagine your own child laughing at you) so I looked it up in the Geographical Names portion of the dictionary (an older model) and it said Antarctica or Antarctic Continent body of land surrounding the South Pole. Antarctic Ocean ocean surrounding Antarctica. This did not quell her giggles as she brought me her Social Studies book and the picture of the earth and said, "Okay where is it?" it wasn't on there. When I looked up Oceans it said "the earth's oceans are divided into four Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, and Arctic" I distinctly remember learning there were 7 continents and 5 oceans. You'll be happy to know there are still 7 continents but apparently we have lost an ocean in the few years since I went to school (maybe many years since I was in the 7th grade). Today was meet the teachers day at school so I went prepared to address this with the Social Studies teacher. The SS teacher was at the front desk along with the English teacher. The SS teacher was a bit younger than I and the English teacher about my age. When I questioned the SS teacher about this she was unaware that there ever was an Antarctic Ocean, the English teacher said, "then what's the 5th ocean?" The SS teacher replied there are only 4. So nobody there knows what happened to the 5th ocean. Hopefully I have enough sisters in academia that somewhere I can get an answer to this.

8 comments:

EZ Travel said...

If I had been asked if there was an Antartic Ocean I would have said no it is the Artic Ocean. But then I make no claim to remembering anything from grade school (or last week). I will look into the missing ocean thing. If I find it, where do you want me to put it?

marty said...

What happened to 'the seven seas?'

paulette said...

I don't ever remember an Antarctic Ocean. The seven seas were the 4 oceans and the Mediterranean, Caribbean and Arabian Seas.

Adrienne said...

I have no knowledge of an Anartic ocean either. But I promise not to laugh at you.

Adrienne said...

I did find this on my new favorite place - google

http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa091500a.htm

Gretchen said...

Wow, I was sure all of you (except maybe Adrienne who went to school after me) would remember there being 5 oceans. Why was I the only one taught this? And yet Adrienne's article from google suggests that this is a recent debate to add an ocean? I don't remember who taught me this, but they were way ahead of their time.

paulette said...

I don't think they can add an ocean. They tried to add a Great Lake and that didn't work out too well.

Adrienne said...

WHile talking to some teachers at lunch (who range in age from 22 to 5?) the younger ones had no clue, while the older and one educated in Iran knew of it. One says it is actually a part of the Straits of Magellaen.