These are prototype activities developed between 2012-2014 as part of the early OOI Education effort. They feature a more complex format, wherein students piece together several datasets (i.e. pieces of "evidence") to answer an overarching challenge question.
These resources, along with the background information below, are presented here as-is for historical reference.
In the original design, the "EPE Ocean Education Portal" featured an "Investigation Builder" that would allow faculty to build their own investigations following a Backwards Design and Learning Cycle based process. The builder also allowed faculty to share or adapt ones previously developed by others. For more about this earlier effort, please see McDonnell, J. et al. (2018), Education and Public Engagement in OOI: Lessons Learned from the Field, Oceanography, 31(1), 138-146, doi:10.5670/oceanog.2018.122.
Do you want your students to practice interpreting scientific data to draw appropriate conclusions? The Data Investigations available are ideal for introductory undergraduate classes to use as in-class assignments, but they can also be used as engagement or homework activities for upper-level classes.
Teaching with scientific data provides an entry point for learners to engage in science and making meaning from observations. Using data in our classes, lecture, and laboratories focuses learning on the process of science while capitalizing on new opportunities created by data sharing and web technology.
The exponential growth in scientific data through programs such as the Ocean Observing Initiative (OOI) is providing exciting opportunities for scientists to mine data from sources well beyond their own university based research groups. Often in the ocean sciences, phenomena of interest are too difficult and expensive for students to explore by direct experience in the classroom. The OOI provides an important and critical service to bring ocean science data to the classroom for authentic learning experiences.
Software tools developed for undergraduate teaching using OOI data support students in developing evidence and reasoning skills. By incorporating this framework of claims evidence, and reasoning for scientific explanation into EPE online exercises, instructional strategies, and assessments, we hope to build students' conceptual understanding and improve their ability to think and communicate more scientifically.
The EPE's online data investigations, strive to help students develop strong argumentation skills by focusing on analyzing evidence and backing up their claims. The ability to make and understand scientific claims, analyze evidence, and develop arguments from the analysis of data is critical to student learning success and to compete in the modern workforce.
We define Data-enhanced learning experiences, as including activities in which students collect and interpret their own data and those in which they explore research databases to answer questions. Data enhanced learning experiences can:
Reference: Manduca and Mogk (2002). Using Data in Undergraduate Science Classrooms.