The 2025 Data Labs Cape May Workshop Participants at the Rutgers Aquaculture Innovation Center (AIC).
A network of undergraduate professors is creating a new edition of an open-source online laboratory manual, full of free educational data activities for anyone to use in undergraduate or graduate oceanography classes.
Developed by the Ocean Data Labs project, each chapter of the online lab manual focuses on different oceanographic concepts typically taught in an Introduction to Oceanography textbook. The activities are matched with important data literacy skills students need to know to think like scientists. Incorporated in each chapter is real and complex data from both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, collected by the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI). This opportunity gives students real experience with the types of data they will use in their future careers in ocean science or other fields.
This lab manual builds upon seven years’ worth of work from the Ocean Data Labs community, a community that has been fostered by a collaborative NSF grant project headed by Rutgers University, Stockton University, Queen’s College, and Hillsborough Community College, along with an evaluation team from Carleton College.
“The Lab Manual came out of our community of practice,” explained Anna Pfeiffer-Herbert, Associate Professor of Marine Science at Stockton University and one of the Principal Investigators (PI) on the grant that funded this initiative. “It was actually not a part of the original grant.”
The original project was designed to bring faculty together to explore ways they could use OOI datasets with their students. The OOI collects a variety of data on ocean weather, currents, productivity, and the chemistry of seawater. Through a series of workshops, faculty explored the OOI, learned about effective pedagogical approaches for engaging students with data, and shared best practices for helping students develop scientific explanations. From this community of practice, the Data Labs team realized there was a need to create structured resources to help faculty teach these concepts, which resulted in the development of the online textbook.
Just this past October, members of the community convened in Princeton, New Jersey to start the process of updating the lab manual, the uniquely named Lab Manual 3.0. A second workshop was held in Cape May, NJ, in May 2025. Led by Rutgers Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences staff Janice McDonnell and Sage Lichtenwalner, these workshops brought the network together to finish the new version of the manual, while also providing an opportunity for authors to have their new chapters pilot tested by other oceanography professors new to the project.
Rutgers AIC Hatchery Manager Sean Towers shows Data Labs workshop participants seed oysters they are cultivating.
“This workshop gave us time with our groups to work and flesh out these chapters,” Claire Condie, Professor of Natural Sciences at Middlesex College, remarked. “And getting the real-time feedback from other instructors was appreciated.”
Troy Sadler, Thomas James Distinguished Professor of Experiential Learning at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, added that “these data labs are so detailed—they represent an enormous amount of thoughtful planning and many decisions that go into ensuring effective chapters and workshops. There’s a lot here that we have access to.”
One of the newly designed chapters focuses on Ocean Acidification, using data collected from the Oregon Coast where ocean acidification is a common concern for local shellfish growers. Participants got the chance to connect this west coast OOI dataset to cutting edge research at the Rutgers Aquaculture Innovation Center (AIC). Workshop participants were lead on a tour of the facility by Sean Towers, the AIC Hatchery Manager, who shared how Rutgers researchers are studying oyster seeding, the acidification of local waterways, and how they are working with industry to improve the local aquaculture industry.
“I think it was really inspirational that they partnered with the AIC with the ocean acidification lesson,” Haley Cabaniss, Assistant Professor at Charleston College, remarked. “It’s really important for our students and I’m so glad they gave it that emphasis.”
By focusing on connecting the data the OOI collects to hyper-local scientific research in New Jersey, the professors hope to take these same concepts to their own labs and lectures, by incorporating their own local stories.
It’s this constant community input and re-creation that makes the Ocean Data Labs Project and its Lab Manual everlasting, according to Denise Bristol, Hillsborough Community College Professor and another PI on the project. “Every time we work on this lab manual, the better it becomes,” she commented. “The more people you talk to and get ideas from the better it becomes.”
While the current project is coming to an end, the work and tools developed to help engage new generations of students in ocean science using real data and real stories will remain accessible through https://datalab.marine.rutgers.edu/.
Editor’s note: This article was written by Mitaali Taskar, a science communicator and research project assistant with Rutgers Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.
