Course Description
The underwater environment is not one that most people have the oppportunity to encounter.
Most people that are submerged in an aquatic environment do so via snorkel. Only 1%
of all people in the United States are certified SCUBA divers. But, SCUBA offers
the possibility of complete sumersion in this underwater world. Even so, SCUBA is
limited in that one can only recreationally dive to 130 feet. The ocean is vast and
deep. Beyond 130 feet several other techniques are used to explore the underwater
world. One of them is by using ummanned submersibles called Remotely Operated Vehicles
(ROVs). This course will introduce students to the deep-sea via video and photographs
collected from a ROV funded by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Students will also be involved with helping to develop a software program that is
aimed at automatic organsim detection. In order to do this, students are required
to learn taxonomic hierarchy, animal identification, and Tator (the software program
developed by CVision AI) use. The FathomNet Animal guide, hosted by the Monterey
Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), will be utilized to assist with species identification.
Along the way, questions about biodiversity, organism distribution and abundance will
be addressed. This course also provides the opportunity for SCUBA certification as
part of the course. For those that have physical or financial limitations, an independent
project will be developed in collaboration with the course instructor and T.A. Students
who will complete an open water SCUBA diving course (including an eLearning portion)
will do so through a certified dive shop in the Dallas area (which entails the completion
of an online course and preparation for two days of pool dives, two days of open water
dives). Students who choose to develop an independent project will utilize the skills
they develop throughout the semester to ask their own question, develop an experimental
design, collect data (from FathomNet and/or Tator), and write a laboratory report
and complete an oral presentation to the class.
Course Materials
Most recent syllabus can be found here. This syllabus may change for future iterations of the course.
Lab Manual can be found here. Instructors can access an instructor annotated version by e-mailing me at: dsoper@udallas.edu.
Acknowledgement
This lab manual and curriculum was prepared by Carolann Stone, Abigail Fritz, and
Deanna Soper, Ph.D. at the University of Dallas using funds granted from the National
Marine Sanctuary Foundation using Federal awards under award NA19OAR0110405 from NOAA,
U.S. Department of Commerce. The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations
are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NOAA or
the U.S. Department of Commerce.