Oceanography in Kentucky?

1. Oceanography in Kentucky? Margaret E. Crowder Department of Geography and Geology Western Kentucky University

2. GEOL 311 - Oceanography The course provides a foundation in the vast body of oceanic knowledge. It includes information from a variety of scientific disciplines – geology, geography, chemistry, physics, and biology – as they relate to the oceans. • Required course for Geology majors focusing on Earth-Science Education • Approved elective course within all other Geology tracks

3. Oceanography at WKU • Oceanography is a recently revived course offering • As an inland University, we have a certain disadvantage • Current teaching methods are adequate…. • Always room for improvement!

4. What we do….

5. A picture is worth a thousand words • PowerPoint is ESSENTIAL • Some students have never visited the ocean! • Students must be able to SEE the subject to understand it

6. Picture this!

7. Use what you have • South-Central Kentucky is the perfect location to study paleo-marine environments • Limestones, shales, and sandstones are common • Marine fossils are easily found • Students can use “Reverse” Uniformitarianism! • The past is the key to the present

8. Kentucky Limestone

9. Seeing is believing • Can’t bring the ocean to the students? Take the students to the ocean! • Bahamas course • Gerace Research Station on San Salvador Island, Bahamas • Special Topics course • Covered Geology and Biology • Ideal situation • Students involved in the learning process • VERY expensive

10. Students doing a reef transect

11. Taking conductivity measurements

12. Problem Based Learning • Student responsibility increased • Students gain ‘ownership’ of the learning process • Students research the information they feel is most important • Students actively solve real-world problems • More information may be covered than class time would allow

13. Working with numbers • Lab exercises using real data can be useful • Students learn to use data, but may not understand the applications • Haven’t found many that are interesting

14. What we would like to do….

15. If wishes were seahorses…. • Collaboration between classes • Upper division coastal course & Introductory inland course • Classes cooperate on real research • Useable data online • Data that introductory students can understand and use • If students can take ownership of the data, they learn more!

16. A world of possibilities? • More webcams? • Webcams on buoys • Students ‘see’ the locations • Webcams on research vessels • See the work as it is being done • Virtual ocean research voyage? • Computer program that students can manipulate • Similar to ‘Planet Oit’, a project at North Dakota State University

17. More possibilities…. • Remote manipulation of oceanographic instrumentation via the web • Students participate in the process of collecting the data • Hmmm….didn’t we talk about this last night? • Outreach to the public • Importance of oceanography needs to be emphasized everywhere • Students in landlocked areas of the country would be more likely to take an Oceanography course if they had some initial understanding