Awash With Data

Forty-seven professors from 13 states, driven by their dedication to providing the best education for their students, chose to spend their summer at our Data Labs 2024 workshop in Wilmington. They recognized the importance of engaging their students with raw oceanographic data from the NSF Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), an opportunity they did not want to miss.

Following the workshop, we spoke with two community college professors who attended to learn how they adapted these tools to fit their classrooms and courses.

Callan Bentley

Callan Bentley is an Associate Professor of Geology at Piedmont Virginia Community College. He sees the NSF OOI data as a valuable resource to use in conjunction with another NSF-funded program, STEMSEAS.

Dr. Beaulieu and Callan Bentley speak with two other workshop participants. They are working on a data interpretation activity to understand each other’s purpose for coming to the workshop.

During an upcoming cruise, he planned to use the Axial Seamount activity, printing out the graphs without titles to fashion an activity that guides the students as they connect the Axial Seamount to the Juan de Fuca Ridge to volcanoes. Using the Data Labs activity, he wanted to model how underwater volcanism informs plate formation and how plate submersion can inform underwater volcanism.

“I … want them to get to the point where they realize, ‘oh, he’s talking about a volcano’.”

In the end, he hoped that this data-enriched activity helped the students develop a better appreciation for where the ocean floor comes from and let them revel in this unique experience to work with scientific data while literally being where data could be collected.

Karen Meyer

Karen Meyer is a Professor of Biological Sciences at St. Johns River State College. She teaches year-round–online or in-person lectures, in-person labs for the summer, and field trips in the fall. Professor Meyer’s courses include environmental science for majors and non-majors in the fall and marine biology in the spring.

Karen Meyer, marine biologist and accomplished scientific diver.

After the workshop, she expressed interest in using the data labs in her fall and spring courses. Using Lab 2, “The Display of Oceanographic Data”, Lab 3, “Plate Tectonics and the Seafloor”, and Lab 4, “Sea Floor Changes in a Volcanically Active Setting”, she is planning to integrate the NSF OOI data and these tools into her existing lesson plans.

Her students are unique. They are later-in-life learners, who have other very real priorities that take precedence over making it to every single class on time. Using the Data Labs catalog of tools can make lecture and data manipulation labs more accessible and Professor Meyer sees the data labs working well by supplementing her more hands-on activities, like field trips and community programs.

Striking a Balance

Dr. Stace Beaulieu, Senior Research Specialist and NSF OOI Data Team member, also had a unique perspective on using NSF OOI data and Data Labs in an educational space—the Wilmington workshop.

Dr. Beaulieu presents on the NSF OOI data at the Wilmington Workshop.

Dr. Beaulieu considers herself a mediator between the raw data at the NSF OOI and the Data Labs community. At the workshop, her task was to make the data accessible to these primarily undergraduate educators, many of whom were engaging with these tools and data for the first time. She had to strike a balance between how many technical steps to write out and how much to leave out, so that the participants could feel comfortable to explore. In the end, she concluded that the best way to present this data really depends on your audience.

Her reflection mirrored the reflection of all the professors at the workshop. As they tailored the Data Labs to their needs, they tried to meet their students where they were, whether at an experiential program like Professor Bentley or an inland classroom lesson like Professor Meyer.

The mission of the Data Labs project is to increase the accessibility of NSF OOI data to professors and their students. By doing so, we hope to highlight how NSF’s investment in the OOI can seamlessly support the development of students’ data literacy and critical thinking skills and, ultimately, through their involvement in future research, our understanding of the ocean and climate change.

Like the three above, the Wilmington workshop attendees have just started their Data Labs journey. These insights are the first of many we hope to learn about as our new Data Labs community members utilize the lessons and datasets with their classes in the coming semesters.