Project Info – OOI Ocean Data Labs

Project Background

The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) is designed to transform the way ocean science is conducted, and will provide a rich opportunity to reshape ocean science education as well.

The OOI program is designing, deploying and operating a large array of transformative research platforms and sensors. These sensors collect datasets necessary to understand the complex processes and challenges facing today’s changing ocean. As a whole, the OOI will provide ocean scientists with an invaluable resource to conduct cutting-edge and cost-effective science. But most importantly, the OOI will provide abundant research experiences for the next generation of ocean scientists and their students, who will hopefully enter the ocean science workforce themselves.

The data and science advanced by the OOI presents a ripe opportunity to rethink how data from the ocean is used in educational settings. Recent advances in web-based education have led to the development of novel on-line instructional platforms. In addition, tools and programs for visualizing data have become widely available and easier to use, while the proliferation of web services has enabled easy access to scientific datasets. All of this provides scientists and educators a new capacity to effectively translate research results into understandable narratives and curricula that can engage students in active scientific inquiry through the use of data collection and analysis of real world phenomena.

This project will develop and disseminate a number of resources, including Data Explorations and Data Lab Jupyter Notebooks, are designed to help generate new learning experiences that maximize the unique and transformative science and engineering capacities of the Ocean Observatories Initiative.

Key Project Goals

Build a Community of Practice (CoP) of undergraduate educators, interested in using OOI data with their students.
Help make OOI data more accessible to educators and students.