The OOI Ocean Data Labs 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 Labs 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

ADCP data from the Oregon inshore mooring of the OOI Endurance Array.
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Teaching Concepts in Data Analysis with Live Coding

Data Labs in the Classroom: Teaching Tips from the Community Dr. Tom Connolly, OOI Data Lab Fellow 2020 I am a faculty member at San José State University and I teach at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (MLML). I am a physical oceanographer,…
screenshot of data interactive from Plate Boundary Features exploration
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Enhancing Lectures with Interactive Data Explorations

Data Labs in the Classroom: Teaching Tips from the Community Dr. Meg Blome, OOI Data Lab Fellow 2020 Hello! My name is Meg Blome and I am a faculty member in the Geological Sciences Department at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC.…
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Facilitating Active Learning and Bridging Oceanographic Concepts by Exploring Ocean Acidification

Data Labs in the Classroom: Teaching Tips from the Community Dr. Natasha Gownaris, OOI Data Lab Fellow 2020   Hi everyone! My name is Tasha Gownaris and I teach at Gettysburg College, a small liberal arts college in Pennsylvania.…
Screenshot of the Netcdf file not found error

A workaround for a common error on NDBC DODS

I've long touted the advantages of using NDBC data for introducing students to programming and data analysis, with an oceanographically focused dataset. In particular, their DODS Server makes it fairly easy to access decades of data from hundreds…
Cover of the OOI Special Issue in Oceanography Magazine
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Student research summaries can help guide activity development

Early on in our OOI Data Labs project planning, we had a big question: Of all the data collected by the OOI, which datasets would really engage students? The OOI has over a thousand instruments deployed across several Arrays, and all of…
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Linking Chlorophyll-a to Fisheries Productivity

Data Labs in the Classroom: Teaching Tips from the Community Sara Smith, OOI Data Lab Fellow 2020   My name is Sara Smith and I teach at Bellingham (WA) Technical College in the Fisheries and Aquaculture Sciences program. We are a…