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.

  • Attendees at our 2019 workshop in Bellingham, WA.
  • Participants at our workshop during the 2019 Earth Educators Rendezvous in Nashville.
  • OSM20 Data Lab Workshop table group
  • Data Lab workshop participants at Western Washington University.
  • Sage chats with several Ocean Sciences workshop participants.
  • Participants at our 2020 Ocean Sciences Data Labs workshop.
  • A table of participants at our Ocean Sciences Workshop hard at work checking out some new Data Explorations.
  • July workshop participants use a bright window to compare multiple graphs on top of each other
  • Participants from our July OOI Data Lab Development Workshop
  • Participants from our June OOI Data Lab Development Workshop
  • The March 2019 OOI Data Labs workshop featured 20 participants and staff from around the country.
  • Wilmington workshop participants gather on the dock at UNCW for a photo.
  • Workshop participants on the trolly on their way to the first night of presentations.
  • Participants discuss how best to interpret a graph as part of a nonsense data activity.
  • Dr. Beaulieu presenting on the OOI Data Explorer to workshop participants. She is standing and actively talking while the participants are sat in front of her and following along.
  • Four participants gathering around a table, looking at a laminated piece of paper and discussing its contents.
  • Six adults standing side-by-side, smiling at the camera, outside on a sunny day, shaded by a vibrant tree.
  • Workshop participants gather in front of a fall tree at the Chauncey Center
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Recent Blog Posts

Streamflow over the course of 2012 from the USGS streamgage in Trenton, NJ
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RTD Activity Idea: Monitoring Streamflow

The USGS's National Water Information System provides data that is easily accessible to students, allowing them to investigate real-time river conditions at nearby locations or across the nation.
A 1-year graph of river flow on the Delaware River at Trenton NJ
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Streamflow on the Delaware

While temperature, pressure or humidity change with more predictable variation throughout the course of a year, streamflow is more closely correlated with major rain and snow events that occur sporadically throughout the year, often in large doses.
A map of the Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service (AHPS) river forecasts
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Observations and Forecasts of River Floods

Every time it rains there is a potential for flooding to occur. The National Weather Services' Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service (AHPS) analyzes data and models to issue forecasts of potential flooding events.
USGS WaterWatch Web Site
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USGS WaterWatch

Thanks to a network of over 3,000 stream gages monitored by the U.S. Geological Survey, and the WaterWatch web site, we can easily study how rain and snow impact local streams, rivers and estuaries.
Average monthly wave heights at NDBC Buoy 44025
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Riding the Waves of the Seasonal Roller-Coaster

In the Mid-Atlantic, the winter months usually bring with them strong storms and high winds, and in the ocean, strong winds in the winter lead to larger significant wave heights on average.
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Coastal Population Report

In ocean education, it's often a challenge to convey how humans and the ocean are connected. One good place to start is where people live.

 The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) Data Labs is pleased to be a (non-funded) sponsored program of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT).

NAGT sponsors programs that foster improvements in the teaching and learning about Earth as a system at all levels of formal and informal instruction, emphasize the relevance and cultural significance of geoscience to all people, foster and disseminate knowledge of and research in geoscience education, and promote professional growth of our members. the Data Labs project  fully aligns with NAGT’s mission as it works to promote data literacy skills building in undergraduate education using the lens of the geoscience disciplines.