Wind and Ocean Ecosystems
Alanna Lecher, Lynn University; April Watson, Lynn University
Wind has a fundamental impact on ocean ecosystems. Wind drives physical processes, including current development and upwelling through Ekman transport. These physical processes, in turn, have cascading impacts on ...

Using Ocean Plastic Research to Increase Student Engagement and Persistence in Biology
Ana Maria Barral, National University
The Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (HSI Program) aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also generate new knowledge on how to achieve these aims. This project at National University will advance the aims of the HSI Program by adding research experiences to undergraduate biology courses. Through a collaboration with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, this project incorporates course-based undergraduate research (CURE) biology courses for biology majors and for non-majors. The research topics focuses on plastic pollution in the ocean, particularly the microbial populations attached to floating plastic. The CURE is modular and can be adapted for undergraduate courses of different levels. In addition, a virtual adaptation was implemented during the Covid-19 epidemic lockdown phase. A version of the CURE designed for microbiology courses uses the established Tiny Earth methodology to isolate antibiotic producing bacteria from plastic debris.

Paleoclimate and Ocean Biogeochemistry
Allison Jacobel, Middlebury College
This module guides students through an examination of how surface ocean productivity relates to global climate on glacial-interglacial timescales and how the availability of ocean nutrients can be correlated with ...

Reef Builders through Time
Peg Yacobucci, Bowling Green State University-Main Campus
Students will use the Paleobiology Database (PBDB) to explore the history of reef-building animals through time. They will document diversity and extinction patterns through time for seven reef-building marine ...

Rally Speeches for Coastal Optimism
Laura Guertin, Penn State Brandywine
Storytelling is an effective way to communicate what is happening along our local-to-international coastal zones. However, most of the stories students hear are ones of "doom and gloom." Therefore, ...

Unit 6: Ocean Preservation: Sustaining Our Oceanic Resources
MICHELLE KINZEL, Southwestern College; Astrid Schnetzer, North Carolina State University; Cara Thompson, Arizona State University at the West Campus
Students are introduced to the concept of geoengineering, "the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth's climate system, in order to moderate global warming" (The Royal Society). The goal is ...

Exploring Ocean Resources in Our Everyday Lives
Janelle Sikorski, Miami University-Oxford
Students are asked to keep a food diary for 24 hours and then asked to analyze the products they consumed in terms of the ocean resources needed to make and deliver that product. This assignment was designed to ...

Using the pH Scale and Carbonic Acid Formation to Understand the Effect of Ocean Acidification on Organisms with Calcium Carbonate Shells.
Richard Rueb, Clackamas Community College
In this lab activity students use the pH scale and the reaction of carbon dioxide with water to understand ocean acidification and make predictions regarding the effect of ocean acidification on marine organisms by experimentally determining the effect of pH of calcite dissolution.

Grocery Store Survey of Aquaculture Products
Susan Richardson, Florida Atlantic University
Students work in pairs to survey seafood items sold in local grocery stores or fish markets, recording whether items are farm-raised or wild caught, fresh, frozen or preserved, as well as country of origin. ...

Coastal Erosion Online Discussion
Sheila Roberts, Bowling Green State University-Main Campus
This assignment is designed to get students to see the application of geology to a local problem, coastal erosion along the Lake Erie shoreline. I think the strength of this assignment is that many of the students ...