Oceanography Students Contribute to Data Analysis

Science Department Chair Cecelia Pan is incorporating real life research into her curriculum. Students in her Oceanography class are helping scientists and other researchers analyze their over-abundance of data by logging in to a crowd-sourcing data analytic website called zooniverse.com. Students analyze and record results online.  Many students are studying photographs of penguin habitats, counting adults, juveniles, and eggs. They will continue this project throughout the year. 

Students submit their analysis, which is grouped with hundreds of other people who have done the same work, computers weed out any outlying metrics, and the rest is aggregated into a report for the scientists. Students are able to make a real-time contribution to an ongoing research project.

Currently, Zooniverse is being used by oceanography students, but will be expanded to Evolution, Ecology, and the Environment, and AP Biology classes, with the possibility of global studies and history classes, as well.