By Steven Katona
Curiosity is making waves in Daytona State College’s Marine Science program, setting into motion a new hands-on lab coming Fall semester 2013.
Students in the two-year Associate of the Arts transfer track program, drawn to Earth’s oceans and marine life, will have the opportunity to receive a more practical approach when studying Oceanography at the College. Marine Science, Marine Biology, Ocean Engineering and Environmental Science majors ─ students who are earning prerequisite credit hours to transfer to a four-year university ─ will study in the field and gain research experience through the added lab to the Oceanography 1001 course.
“I’m trying to give them more opportunities and more experiences in the field,” said DSC professor Dr. Debra Woodall. “They’re going to experience things that many people in four-year universities don’t get to experience. I’m talking about going out in the field and working instruments, learning how to do water sampling and sampling organisms in the marine and freshwater environment.”
After years of trying to make this class available to DSC students, the tide is now turning for Woodall, who will be instructing the course. Recent funding has allowed the class to shift from a possibility to reality, resulting in its upcoming debut. Additionally, the Marine Science Department obtained a boat that can take up to eight students at a time out into the ocean and Halifax/Indian River for field research. Woodall believes that this course will give DSC students who are transferring to a four-year university an advantage and that they will have more experience and be better prepared than their future classmates.
Marine Science major Alysha Dixon thinks the course will be a great opportunity for students in the fall who are interested in Oceanography. If some students are on the edge about which major to pursue, a class like this may help them decide.
“It would be one of the only classes here that would give you real hands-on training,” she said. “You’ll be in the real world actually doing something.”
One activity that Woodall would like to incorporate into the lab is to launch Remotely Operated Vehicles off of the boat and into the ocean, similar to the movie Titanic. Students will engineer their own prototype, attach a water-resistant camera and explore the underwater marine environment on Florida’s east coast in the sea grass beds and coral reefs. These vessels will even have the ability to collect samples that the students can examine on location.
Because this class is geared more towards students who are science majors, those looking for an easy A won’t find it here. This class is intentionally designed to challenge students and aims to educate students with emphasis.
“We’re limited in the number of the students who can actually enroll. If you are interested you better sign up early, because each lab will only have 16 people in it, and the first semester we’re only going to have one lab, as a test drive. I expect that it is going to be pretty popular.” said Woodall.