The OOI Ocean Data Lab 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 Lab 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

Scattering Data to See Correlations

The most popular data visualizations in oceanography are probably timeseries plots and maps.  But I suspect a strong third is the scatterplot. While a timeseries plot can show how a variable changes in time, and maps can show variation…
A timeseries graph of seawater temperature data measured from the 30m CTD at Global Station Papa Flanking Mooring B, including the mean, median, standard deviation and quartile boxes.

The Upside and Downside of Basic Statistics

When it comes to analyzing and interpreting data, one of the first tools a scientist will reach for are a few basic statistics. This includes calculations like mean, median, standard deviation and range, though there are certainly many others.…
The 8 Science and Engineering Practices

What Makes a Scientist?

Am I a scientist? That’s a somewhat existential question that I, and others in positions like mine, often find myself asking. I’m sure my friends, and the K-12 teachers I work with, generally think of me as a scientist without any…

Air and Sea Temperatures

I love creating data visualizations. I always feel like I’m on an adventure when I take some data, visualize it in a number of different ways, and try to make sense of what secrets are hidden inside. Often times you have a good idea…
Collage of data visualizations from the 2018 OOI Data Workshops

Oh My Data

The Ocean Observatories Initiative has a lot of data! Conceived in the late 1990’s, the OOI was designed to bring together a cutting-edge collection of instruments into a single integrated ocean observatory. This observatory would be larger,…
Collage of data visualizations from the 2018 OOI Data Workshops
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The Circle of OOI

The complexity of the Ocean Observatories Initiative, simplified to a nice simple circle.