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.
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Recent Blog Posts

Sea Surface Temperature

In the first of several series I hope to start on this blog, let start off with our first installment of Better Know a Dataset. Given that New Jersey is currently in the midst of a sweltering heat wave (record highs around 103 °F were set it many places today), it seems only appropriate that we should start with Sea Surface Temperature.
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An Ocean View

We now live in an ocean of data. Scientific advances today, whether in economics, medicine, homeland security or earth science, all rely on the collection and analysis of mountains of data. The technological and communications revolutions of the last few decades have made it easier to monitor and collect data from every facet of society and the environment. The challenge for the next generation of scientists will be to make sense of all this information.

 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.