
The OOI Ocean Data Lab Project
The National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) is advancing our ability to understand the natural world by collecting large quantities of data to address complex oceanographic processes. This expanded access to data also provides professors in the geosciences with new opportunities to engage undergraduate students in authentic data experiences using real-world data sets to teach geoscience processes.
However, students struggle to work with data based on their limited experience and exposure to different data types and sources. Also, supporting students in engaging with the data can be challenging for professors too, as there is a lack of adequate tools to easily digest and manipulate large data sets for in-class learning experiences.
Therefore, the OOI Ocean Data Lab Project (formerly called Data Explorations), with funding from NSF, is developing, testing, refining, and disseminating easy to use, interactive Data Explorations and Data Lab Notebooks that will allow undergraduates to use authentic data in accessible ways while being easy for professors to integrate into their teaching.
Recent Blog Posts

Last year was a tumultuous one for the history books, to put it mildly. And while many of us already trying to forget the year that was 2020, the Ocean Data Labs community actually has a lot to be proud of.
Of course, from an educational…
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Sage Lichtenwalner2021-01-11 12:07:412021-01-11 15:14:52Ocean Data Labs looks back at 2020
Data portals are great for navigating and finding useful datasets. But sometimes, the easiest way to access data is with a bit of code, especially when you want to make your own graphs or do a bit of custom processing (like the above example).
For…
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Sage Lichtenwalner2020-11-17 11:50:002020-11-17 11:50:33My ooilab Python Toolbox
This summer, as part of our virtual REU workshop, we introduced students to the basics of using Python to analyze oceanographic data. When we frantically designed the course back in May (during the early even more frantic days of the pandemic),…
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Sage Lichtenwalner2020-11-11 16:20:312020-11-11 16:20:31Introduction to Python – Argo Float Data
Storytelling with data is a popular topic. In fact, one of the most cited papers in Data Vis, Segel and Heer's 2010 Narrative Visualization: Telling Stories with Data, just celebrated its 10th anniversary and was awarded IEEE's Test of Time…
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Sage Lichtenwalner2020-11-06 13:00:062020-11-08 02:23:03Storytelling with Ocean Data
Weather is something we all experience. Which is why you'll often find weather-related data used in data analysis courses. Of course, as oceanographers, weather data is far more relevant to our research goals, but it's also useful to start with…
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Sage Lichtenwalner2020-11-03 18:39:282020-11-11 16:21:19Introduction to Python – Data Analysis
Teaching students how to visualize ocean data is a challenge. But before you get into cognitive theory, choosing colors, or the the principles of (good) visualization design, you really just need to get your students' feet wet plotting some…
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Sage Lichtenwalner2020-10-27 17:17:002020-11-11 16:22:58Introduction to Python – Part 2