My entire life I wanted to explore the ocean and the environment.  I have always had a great appreciation for the processes that are not completely understood and the unknowns that have yet to be discovered in the environment.  In the beginning of my professional career in research, I worked as a naturalist on a whale watch boat and as a laboratory technician working on environmental clean up projects such as water and land pollution. Then I moved into my dream job of being a research chemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in marine & geochemistry where I was able to be in the foundation of the research community and learn from many amazing scientists & researchers who devoted their life to exploring the mysteries of the environment as well as protecting the animals and organisms living in it.  For me, working as a student mentor with graduate and post graduate students, made this experience one I will always cherish.  As a teacher, I want my students to be excited about what they are learning and with my background in research, I will work extra hard to make sure that if there is an aspect of a topic that a student is interested in, I will make every effort to alter my lessons to include those topics.

2 - 4 hours per week outside of class
Homework
Frequency: included
Feedback: included
Details: Each week the students will be provided with a recording to listen to as well as assigned weekly readings and a discussion question that students will be required to respond to. Students may also complete the questions in the Nearpod lessons while they are watching the recording for the week.  This will help to them to reinforce the concepts presented in the lessons. Each student will also be provided with their own individual login to Ck-12, which is a site I will be using to provide additional assignments for the students. This site is designed for students to work at their own pace.  
Students will also be provided with a short project that will begin on the third lesson. More information will be explained further throughout the course. 
Assessment
Frequency: included
Details: Understanding of the weekly concepts is assessed by completion of the discussion questions, in addition to, participation in the Nearpod lessons. In Ck-12 students can access supplemental materials such as readings, videos, and interactives. Quizzes in Ck-12 are offered as a way to gauge student understanding of the optional lessons given in Ck-12. 
This class is designed to best suit each student individually, therefore, if a student would like more reading materials or other ways to gauge student understanding, then I can provide that. Families can also use all of the recordings, discussions, the project, and reading materials the way that they see works best for their student(s). 
Grading
Frequency: included
Details: Grades and/or progress reports can be given if requested by the learner or parent. 

Students do not need to have any previous knowledge of marine biology or marine ecosystems. 

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, NOAA, various scientific articles from Nature, Science Direct