Students
Try a guided project with a spreadsheet or paper. Practice reading graphs, comparing measurements and writing a supported conclusion.
Find a projectFree resources for students, educators & researchers
Explore Florida water.
Learn from real evidence.
Study tides, coastal weather, rivers and water quality with public datasets, agency teaching resources and guided projects. Start with a question, keep a source trail and explain what the evidence can support.
No Gillby account neededClassroom and independent studyDesktop activities · no boat required
Choose your starting point
A local question. A useful skill.
Teachers
Pair an agency lesson with a Florida location. Adapt the suggested level and timing to your class; Gillby activities do not claim curriculum accreditation.
Find teaching materialsResearchers
Use the dataset directory to reach original providers. Evaluate methods, metadata, quality controls and reuse terms against your research question.
Find primary dataGillby Experiments · standalone public tools
Try it with real API data.
Interactive learning demonstrations built with Gillby’s public API, separate from the signed-in planning app. No account needed. Inspect the requests and repeat the investigation through MCP.
EXPERIMENT / 01
Tide prediction vs. reality
Does the water follow the prediction exactly?
Live public API data · no account needed · change the controls to explore
EXPERIMENT / 02
One coast, different conditions
How different can two places be at the same hour?
Live public API data · no account needed · change the controls to explore
EXPERIMENT / 03
What do we actually know?
Can one beach sample describe every day?
Live public API data · no account needed · change the controls to explore
For educators & curious learners
Teach with original sources.
Free agency and university starting points. Review individual resources for reading level, accessibility and any stated learning standards.
Ocean and coastal science collections
Start with topic collections for tides, ocean currents, marine life and weather. Choose individual materials to suit your learners and check their stated audience.
Tides teaching resources
Explore explanations and linked learning materials about tidal processes. Pair a lesson with a Florida station to make the question local.
Ocean science explainers
Find educational material about oceans and coasts, including corals, tides and positioning. Useful background before working with measurements.
Water Science School
Build foundations in the water cycle, groundwater, surface water and water quality using agency explanations, images and activities.
Water lesson plans
Find teacher guides, lesson plans and student worksheets. Review the individual activity for age suitability, materials and any stated standards alignment.
Florida coastal science
Explore Florida-focused coastal education and research. Follow a topic to its original publication and distinguish outreach summaries from research papers.
Public data for Florida research
Find the measurements behind the map.
These links lead to provider portals and archives, rather than a Gillby-hosted research dataset. Available periods, export tools and quality status vary.
Tides and measured water levels
Choose a Florida station and date range, then obtain predictions and observations separately. Record station ID, product, interval, datum, units and time zone. Keep quality flags.
A question to explore: How closely do astronomical predictions match measured water levels at one station?
Historical buoy observations
Choose a station, year and available archive. Read the column descriptions, units and missing-value codes before importing the file. Sensor coverage varies by station and year.
A question to explore: How does the distribution of measured wind or wave conditions differ between two months?
Florida rivers and lakes
Select a monitoring location, parameter and available period. Read parameter units, station history and provisional or approved status. Gauge height and discharge are different variables.
A question to explore: How does river discharge vary over the available record at one Florida gauge?
Coastal GIS and elevation data
Choose a geographic extent and dataset. Save its metadata, survey date, resolution, coordinate system, vertical reference and usage terms alongside the download.
A question to explore: How does a coastal dataset’s resolution affect the detail visible in a local map?
Florida beach sampling information
Follow county resources to available sampling records and advisories. Preserve site names, sample dates, laboratory units and qualifiers. Availability and export formats vary.
A question to explore: What can sampled dates tell us, and which days or locations remain unknown?
Florida algal bloom samples
Inspect sample locations, dates and available results. Check the portal for available exports and metadata. Reports and sampling locations do not form a uniform statewide survey.
A question to explore: Where were samples collected during a selected period, and where are the coverage gaps?
Three guided desktop projects
Move from a question to a defensible answer.
Gillby-authored activity outlines, with suggested levels and times. Use a completed period with available records; a missing dataset is a reason to choose another period, not invent values.
Secondary school / introductory college · spreadsheet · 60–90 minutes
1. Compare a tide prediction with a measurement
Question: Does a predicted tide explain every change in observed water level?
- Choose one Florida CO-OPS station with both predictions and water-level observations for the same completed day. Save the original files and station metadata.
- Use the same datum, units and time zone. Match timestamps at a shared interval; leave unmatched or flagged values out of the paired calculation and report how many you excluded.
- Plot predictions and observations together. For each valid pair calculate residual = observed − predicted. Describe the largest positive and negative residuals with their times.
- Discuss possible meteorological influences as hypotheses. A residual alone does not establish the cause. Repeat on another day before generalizing.
Your deliverable: Submit an overlaid plot, a small residual table, the station and date range, a source citation and one paragraph on uncertainty.
Arithmetic example only: observed 0.62 m − predicted 0.48 m = +0.14 m. These invented values demonstrate the calculation; they are not a Florida observation.
Open NOAA station data Secondary school / introductory college · spreadsheet · 60–90 minutes
2. Compare two months of buoy wind observations
Question: At one station, how do wind conditions differ between two months?
- Choose one NDBC station with the same wind variable available in both months of a completed year. Read the archive units and missing-value conventions.
- Remove documented missing codes and retain valid measured values. Compare a consistent sampling interval; report valid counts and coverage for each month.
- Calculate the median wind speed and plot the distributions. Keep the station, variable and units identical. Do not average compass directions as ordinary numbers.
- Explain whether missing data, unequal coverage or a few storm days could change the comparison. Two months at one station do not establish a statewide seasonal pattern.
Your deliverable: Submit two comparable plots, a summary table with valid counts, your cleaning rules and a conclusion limited to the selected station and months.
Interpretation prompt: if one month has a higher median but fewer valid observations, what additional evidence would you need before making a seasonal claim?
Open NDBC archives Middle school / secondary school · spreadsheet or paper · 45–60 minutes
3. Build a beach sampling timeline
Question: What does a water-quality sample tell us about the days between tests?
- Choose one Florida beach with available dated sampling records. Record the responsible agency, beach name, sample dates, units and any advisory dates.
- Make a timeline with one mark per sample. Keep sample results and advisories in separate rows. Leave untested dates visibly blank.
- Count sampled dates and identify the longest gap in your selected period. Do not fill gaps with the last result or interpret missing tests as clean water.
- Write a supported observation and an unanswered question. Explain why the timeline cannot establish conditions at another beach or on an untested date.
Your deliverable: Submit an annotated timeline, a source log and a short explanation of what remains unknown. This is a records exercise; no water contact or sample collection is needed.
Discussion prompt: a Tuesday sample and a Friday advisory describe different events. Which dates can you document, and what cannot be inferred about Wednesday?
Open Healthy Beaches resources Before drawing a conclusion
Make your work reproducible.
- Identify the publisher, station or site, parameter and geographic coverage.
- Record units, time zone, datum or coordinate system and sampling interval.
- Keep original files and record retrieval dates, product versions and quality flags.
- Document missing-value codes, excluded records and any resampling or transformations.
- Distinguish observations, model estimates, predictions and official advisories.
- Report sample counts, coverage gaps and uncertainty alongside every conclusion.
A short record at one station describes that place and period. A causal claim, a long-term trend or a statewide estimate needs an appropriate study design and broader evidence. Cite the provider’s methods when discussing limitations.
Citation & attribution
Give readers a path back to the evidence.
Cite the original agency dataset for measurements and Gillby for an activity or explanation you used. Follow any provider-supplied citation or DOI and your instructor’s required style. The template below is a source-log format, not a universal APA or MLA citation.
Agency or author. Dataset or page title. Station/site ID and product. Observation period. Version or quality status, if available. Units, datum and time zone. Original URL or DOI. Retrieved YYYY-MM-DD. Transformations and exclusions: describe separately.
For this page: Gillby. Florida Water Learning & Research. https://www.gillby.com/learn. Retrieved [your access date]. Activities and links reviewed October 19, 2026; source records have their own observation and publication dates.
Check the original item’s reuse terms for data, images and teaching materials. A publicly accessible page does not make every embedded item freely reusable. Gillby is an independent guide and does not imply agency or university endorsement.
Keep exploring Florida’s water.
Connect your classroom question with coastal places, practical boating knowledge and more free resources.