Orange Coast College

Marine Science 100LH, Honors Oceanography Laboratory

Dr. Tom Garrison

Spring Semester 2006

First, something about the Honors Program

The Orange Coast College Honors Program provides courses designed to challenge the highly motivated student who would benefit from wider intellectual experiences than those offered in the traditional curriculum.

The College Honors Program consists of sections of existing courses or new courses which are academically enriched and which have been designated as Honors Level by the college curriculum committee. Honors sections are more intensive in content than ordinary curriculum, assuring individual attention and encouraging students to demonstrate a thorough knowledge of the subject as well as superior thinking, writing, critical thinking, analysis, discussion, and research skills. Interconnections between disciplines and fields of knowledge are stressed. Some honors courses will be enriched versions of introductory courses, some will be more rigorous variations of advanced or specialist courses, and some may obligate the honors student to complete additional work in regular classes.

While the primary objective is to prepare students for transfer, the major objectives of the College Honors Program go beyond this goal. The collaborative effort of student and instructor in a reciprocal teaching-learning situation promotes student initiative, independence, knowledge, curiosity about the world of ideas, and concern for current social issues.

Honors Program Benefits

1. Innovative teaching methods, including interdisciplinary studies.

2. An enthusiastic faculty and staff dedicated to excellence.

3. Interaction with other highly motivated students.

4. Special programs and activities such as guest speakers, seminars, and field trips.

5. Access to honors counselor for special advisement.

6. Designation as College Honors Student on transcripts, certificates, and associate degrees; recognition at graduation.

Marine Science and Honors

No subject is more suited to an honors treatment than Oceanography! Broadly interdisciplinary and inherently interesting, the marine sciences are a perfect vehicle for learning the relationship of history, economics, and social issues to science. Our work together this semester will be wide-ranging. Our schedule is intentionally flexible, allowing us to take advantage of opportunities and paths as they arise. We will share many of the same lab exercises undertaken by the other MS-100 lab sections, but in fact we will do fewer exercises in greater depth. We will do some traveling, and have small-group seminars with visiting professors and each other. The instructor and teaching assistants will work with you whenever you (and they) have a chance to get together -- not just during class time. And, yes, this is only a 1-unit lab – but the good news is that you’ll learn as much as you would in a 3-unit class!

Marine Science 100 Lab -- Course Description

MS-100L is a basic introductory laboratory designed to supplement the MS-100 lecture course. In lab you will learn about marine science research techniques, equipment, instruments, and logic. The lab includes investigations of the physical and chemical properties of the sea, conditions of the sea/air/land interface, review of biology, cartographic (mapping and charting) techniques, a smattering of navigation, analysis of plankton, a look inside some marine organisms, visits to Scripps Institution and an intertidal zone, and work in marine ecology. Critical thinking and group interaction are important components of this course.

For whom this course is intended

Honors students who, while enrolled in or after completing Marine Science 100 at Orange Coast College, wish to learn more about marine science by participating in hands-on experiences involving marine organisms, research techniques, and tools. Students who wish to investigate careers in oceanography will also find this class interesting and informative.

Prerequisite: Concurrent or past enrollment in Marine Science 100 (or equivalent), with a grade of C or better.

Required textbook and materials

1. Oceanography, an Invitation to Marine Science, 5th edition. Tom Garrison. Pacific Grove: Brooks-Cole, 2005. (Packaged with answers to end-of-chapter questions.)

2. Marine Science 100 Lab Manual, Orange Coast College Marine Science Department.

3. Cannery Row, a novel by John Steinbeck.

4. Access to computer with modem, either Macintosh or Windows-based.

Goals and assignments

You will be asked to complete a series of lab write-ups. These will be collected each week, graded, and returned the next week. Lab lecture information, thoughts on what you have learned, ideas, speculation, and generally interesting maunderings are completely appropriate to your write-ups! You should record everything you learn in lab, and write a detailed summary (at least two pages?) at the end of each lab session. Pictures and drawings and graphs are welcome, indeed! It will be read and graded by the teaching assistants in the lab, and passed along to me for checking. Much of your lab grade will derive from these entries. These write-ups will become a permanent record of your learning, progress, group work, and interaction with the knowledge of marine science. It will be an ideal instrument for review and exam preparation, a learning and thinking tool that will promote fluency in your discussions concerning the coursework we will have covered, and a resource for your writing assignments. We’ll provide more details on this course component, and a sheet on how to make a typical entry, during the first class day.

We will have a poster session at the end of the semester. A little more than half way through the semester, each of you will have selected a research topic. You can look forward to a brief presentation on your findings to your friends in the lab, but in order to allow wider dissemination of your effort, each person (or team) will prepare a poster detailing your findings for display to the Department.

At intervals during the semester we will also participate in lab tests. These include fill-in and essay questions based on our work on the lab exercises. Because they involve a fairly elaborate set-up, we regret there can be no make-ups for missed lab exams. You can see when they're scheduled by looking at the course calendar, below.

Reading

Not everyone enrolled in MS-100L(H) will be taking the Marine Science lecture course concurrently, and even those who are can benefit from an immediate overview of our current subject. For this reason, we ask that you stay current in the reading assignments from the text Oceanography, an Invitation to Marine Science, 5th edition (Garrison, 2005, Brooks-Cole/ITP). This book was written with the assistance of students, and you'll find it accessible, current, interesting, and easy to read. Please remember that I receive no profit from any book sold to students in my classes.

Also, we will be reading a marine science novel, John Steinbeck's Cannery Row. Although a work of fiction, it deals with at least one real character, "Doc," patterned after Ed Ricketts, a famous marine biologist and philosopher of science. The depiction of the California sardine industry before the population crash -- and the human residents of Cannery Row -- will be of interest to you, and will shed some light on the nature of marine science in the greater scheme of things. Plus, Steinbeck is a truly wonderful writer, and your College career would surely be incomplete without some exposure to him.

Attendance and class participation

An honors student has a special obligation to himself/herself and the class of which he/she is a part. We are part of a team, we search together for information and direction, and we are fluid enough to change direction if we want to. We are not locked into a rigid course outline this semester. If you don't like the direction the class is taking, help us to change it. You won't be able to cruise along quietly in this lab -- nor would you want to! We're going places (literally and figuratively), and you should plan to come with us. Yes, it will be challenging (this is an honors section). Yes, it will be hard (anything that gives lasting satisfaction is not easily achieved). Yes, it will be the best class you will have in College. But you need to be here to experience it. So, sadly, we must drop you if you miss more than two sessions without an exceptionally good reason.

We ask also that you not be late. We may leave the lab right on the hour to go to some meeting I've set up on another part of the campus.

Appropriate attire is important, too. Our lab is cold (marine labs usually are, for reasons that will become apparent soon), so you would be comfortable in long pants rather than shorts. Also, we insist you wear closed shoes (no thongs or sandals) because of chemicals and glass in the lab.

About your instructor (from an Intelecom brochure)

Tom Garrison (Ph.D., University of Southern California) is professor of marine science at Orange Coast College, where he has received a number of outstanding teacher awards. He was named "Outstanding U. S. Marine Educator" by the National Marine Technology Society, was a winner of the prestigious Salgo-Noren Foundations Award for Excellence in College Teaching; and in 1992, 1993, and 1997, a recipient of the University of Texas NISOD Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to teaching and learning. In 1997 students and faculty at Orange Coast College elected him “Faculty Member of the Year.” He was also an Emmy Award team participant (Television Academy of Arts and Sciences) as writer and science advisor for the syndicated Oceanus television series, an update for which (Endless Voyage, PBS) was completed in 2003 for PBS. He also serves at the University of Southern California as Adjunct Professor of Higher Education. He is co-chair of the Orange Coast College Collegewide Honors Program. His textbooks in Oceanography are the college market leaders in North America, England, Asia, and Australia, and he serves as a grants judge for the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C. He is a resident of Newport Beach, is married, and has a daughter who teaches fourth grade in the Newport-Mesa District, a son-in-law who also works for the District, two noisy granddaughters, and a soon-to-be-married son who works in international trade.

Office hours, the teaching assistants, and other information

My office is immediately adjacent to our lab, Lewis Center -116. My office hours are posted, but I am almost always in the office more than the times scheduled, and typically arrive at OCC before 8:00 each morning. You are always welcome -- in the office, in the lab, in the student center, walking across campus, whenever! If the lab is open and available, please come in, sit down, and work on what you want to work on. You are part of this department -- indeed, you are the most important part of it! So, make yourself at home. (We work hard, but we are not impossible grinds.) The teaching assistants are extraordinary students, our very best. They have volunteered to work with you this semester. They are a huge resource, and we truly could not do an honors course without their dedication, skill, and selfless assistance. Please use their resources whenever you have the opportunity, but remember: they are not going to do your work for you. They will point the way; you will walk down the path.

Teaching and Lab Staff

Instructor-of-record for MS-100LH: Dr. Tom Garrison. Lab director: Mr. Robert Profeta (Rip). Teaching assistants: Mr. K. G. Fairbarn (head TA), Ms. Martine Hauerbach, Mr. Jack Fusting, Mr. Kyle Korte. Reader: TBA. Honors counselor: Mr. Steve Goetz. We are all here to help you see the importance, beauty, and interrelationships inherent in marine science.

The bottom line

Yes, it will be challenging. We don't assume you have any background in science, but we do assume you are an orderly, organized, effective, interested student -- someone who can benefit from just about the finest faculty and facilities the country has to offer. Carpe diem!

Tentative MS-100LH Lab Schedule

Dr. Tom Garrison, OCC

(Ticket #0324, Spring 2006, 1:00 – 4:20, W, Lewis Center 117)

Day #	Date (Spring 2006)	Lab Topic	Assignment; Items due
1	1 February	Introduction; experimental error; boiling water; lab report writing.
2	8 February	Experimental error revisited; boiling more water; intro to Emerita.
3	15 February	Navigation, charts.	First lab report is due. (After today, a report is due each time you come to lab.) Also due today: The latitude and longitude of 3 favorite places.
	22 February	Lab will not meet today.
4	1 March	Bathymetry
5	8 March	Sediments
6	15 March	Water, Parts I and II
7	22 March	Midterm examination
8	5 April	Plankton, Part I
9	12 April	Plankton, Part II
10	19 April	Fish vs. Squid	Cannery Row paper
11	26 April	Intertidal Field Trip (+0.5 @ 1443)
12	3 May	Field Trip to Scripps Institution
13	10 May	Open Lab for projects and review
14	17 May	Presentations, Part I (Paper part is due)	Discussion of projects
15	24 May	Presentations, Part II (Poster part is due)	Poster presentations

Please note: Since flexibility is a hallmark of an honors class, this course calendar is subject to change. A current course calendar will always be posted just to the right of our lab entrance door.

Now brighten up! This will really be fun.

-Tom Garrison ([email protected])