Oceanography at UCSB serves approximately 200 students per quarter and counts for a quantitative science general education requirement. It emphasizes an understanding of the science process and critical thinking about science claims. There are four themes: 1) ocean basins and plate tectonics, 2) atmosphere/ocean/climate, 3) waves and beaches, and 4) world fisheries. Groups of learners use real earth data to prepare position papers that represent the point of view of a country they choose at the course beginning. Each of themes 1, 2, and 4 require a group oral presentation in section. Themes 1 and 2 each require individually written position papers that relate the particular theme to their chosen country. A final “Earth Summit” includes class presentations by groups nominated by the teaching assistants.The Earth Summit theme illustrates the relevance of oceanography to global environmental issues and relates the course to learners’ lives.

Students are also graded on: 1) questions of the day (in lectures), 2) weekly online homework assignments, 3) weekly online mini-quizzes, and 4) weekly online thought questions. A “question of the day” prefaces each lecture. Bar codes facilitate grade entry. The weekly online homework assignments focus on upcoming lab activities. The weekly thought questions are posted to a bulletin board system. After posting, the learner gets access to others’ answers and can then improve their own answers or respond to others’ answers. The mini-quizzes consist of ten multiple choice questions chosen at random from a database of questions related to the week’s course topic. The quiz can be taken as often as desired and the highest grade counts. Each quiz is different. Students can compute their current course grade at any time.

Anonymous student comments after the course were very positive (the most positive they have been for a Spring quarter in many years).