View the ABC Education video (5:04 mins) and learn about a nautical robot that the CSIRO named Argo.

Discover what it is made of, how it floats, sinks and comes back to the surface.

Learn about the data it collects that helps scientists know more about ocean warming.

Did you know that probes do not have Global Positioning Systems (GPS)? They are designed to travel through the oceans to collect scientific information. They can have instruments that take pictures, measure ocean conditions, and then report the data back to Earth. These probes send back data for scientists to study.

Your challenge is to design a probe that can be launched into the ocean to create maps and take close-up photographs of the ocean’s different zones—all while the probe is floating and communicating what it finds back to scientists.

• What might an ocean probe need so that it can be propelled into the ocean? What might it carry and contain so that it can communicate with scientists? What might it need so that it can stay deep within the ocean?
• What equipment will it have so that it can send its data, including the maps and photographs, back to scientists?
• What design features will it need to be able to resurface?

Imagine your ocean probe and draw your designed solution. Include labels of its equipment and its instruments.

(Copyright: Australian Science Teachers Association 2020, except where indicated otherwise. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.)