Introductory Oceanography reimagined at a public liberal arts school due to Covid-19

Oceanography at the University of Mary Washington, a public liberal arts school of less than 5,000 students, is a 4-credit introductory laboratory course that fulfills the students one and only natural science elective. The Covid-19 pandemic forced this class to go 100% virtual in Fall 2020, challenging the traditional in-person active learning lectures and hands-on and field-based labs. To enhance the on-line learning experience, the course was reimagined by 1) flipping the classroom and 2) using data-driven discovery labs. Students were required to watch short video lectures each week, along with reading assignments from the open-resource textbook and were given a short quiz on Canvas on the material. For an asynchronous component, they were broken into small groups and were required to participate in discussion questions that connected concepts with current events and environmental impacts to the ocean. The class met twice a week synchronously, work in small groups on problem sets and then again to discuss questions regarding the course concepts via questions they posted beforehand on a discussion board. Labs were redesigned using authentic datasets on-line for data-driven discovery. Using a mix of asynchronous and synchronous learning activities with data-driven discovery labs, proved successful in creating an engaging and accommodating on-line Oceanography course, such that many of the learning activities will be retained even when in-person teaching can resume.