This program is one of few in the nation to offer undergraduates significant research experience at sea and in the field in addition to providing a thorough grounding in classroom aspects of the science. A diverse flotilla of boats is available for students to use in the bays and coastal areas of Texas pursuing class assignments and research. All students in the MARS program are exposed to research methodology in required classes. In their junior year, students typically enroll in Field Methods in Marine Sciences, where they spend a minimum of six hours each week in the coastal environment learning to collect, document, and analyze information from that environment. A typical class consists of 14 to 16 students and two instructors.
Students work in small groups, and produce biweekly research reports on their projects.
For a recent class project, students journeyed to Chocolate Bayou off West Galveston Bay in two bateaus to sample the waters in several locations and depths for salinity, oxygen, pH, turbidity, currents, and temperature. Later they made plots to show how these variables had changed as they moved farther from the bay. The Electrical and Physical Measurements course introduces research from a different angle. Students learn to operate sophisticated laboratory instruments used in the research laboratories on campus. Students use equipment such as atomic absorption spectrometers, intercoupled plasma mass spectrometers, x-ray particle analyzers, and diffractometers to analyze samples collected on recent Gyre research cruises.