Lectures are offered by the faculty, and Lab sections are taught by a qualified group of Graduate Assistants. The course consists of two hours of lecture and 2 hours of laboratory per week. The course endeavors to survey the major oceanographic processes and their relevance to global climate, food resources, mineral resources, coastal development and hazard. The lecture presents and reviews all topics, supplemented by an introductory-level textbook.
Students are inately interested in oceanography.
Oceanography is, of course, much broader than that, and the oceans fundamentally influence our everyday lives. The subject can be made very relevant to the average undergraduate. Most undergraduates in GenEd courses are not prepared for a rigorous accounting of the forces and processes involved, and, therefore, we teach oceanography in a qualitative and descriptive way. Nonetheless, we will concern ourselves with quantification of certain processes, mainly in laboratory exercises. No need to panic, you will have plenty of time to work on these problems and considerable help in tackling them.