Ocean Explorers is a three-year, professional development project for teachers that culminated in twenty classroom-ready, geographic information system (GIS)-based ocean science lessons. The project, sponsored by the Information Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program of the National Science Foundation, capitalized on a broad interest in ocean science to engage teachers and students in information technology (IT) applications and careers, including global positioning system (GPS), GIS, and image processing (IP).

During the first portion of the program, teachers received extensive training in GIS, GPS, IP, and ocean science from the Center for Image Processing in Education (CIPE), along with the Channel Island National Marine Sanctuary and its partners. For the remainder of the project, teams of three-to-five teachers worked together, with support from CIPE staff, to develop and implement an ocean science-based IT lesson at their schools.

Each team selected a topic of interest, collected relevant background information and data sets, engaged students in the use of GIS to ask specific questions about their topic, and developed a lesson plan with accompanying support materials (lesson and data sets). Some teams collected original data at their study sites and included it in their analyses.

Descriptions of the lessons and the accompanying support materials produced by the teams are posted here. You may search for lessons by topic, CA standards or key words. The lessons and data files have been formatted for consistency, but otherwise remain as prepared by the teams. GIS project files are provided for the software-of-choice of the contributing team. Lessons on the Ocean Explorers Web site use one of the following GIS programs: ArcView 3.0a for Macintosh, ArcView 3.2/3.3, ArcView 9.0, MyWorld GIS, and ArcExplorer Java Edition for Education (Free). GIS software is not provided with the lessons; however, links to required software are provided.

Ocean Explorers is a joint effort of CIPE, Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, and partners from other organizations involved in IT education. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in the lessons are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation, CIPE, Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, or any of the partner organizations.

The data sets and lesson provided are for educational use only. Credit should be given to the authors and the Ocean Explorers program.