Teaching and Outreach

The Pelagic Invertebrate Collection (PIC) at Scripps Institution of Oceanography works closely with several research programs such as the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations Program (CalCOFI) and the California Current Ecosystem Long Term Ecological Research Program (CCE-LTER) along with its public outreach collaborators. The PIC serves as a repository for all archived zooplankton samples for these programs and outreach materials through CCE-LTER. The CCE-LTER site focuses on hypothesis driven research to look at transitions over time within the pelagic ecosystem of the CCE. It supports graduate and post-graduate research, in addition to research experience for undergraduates (REU), some of whom have conducted their research within the PIC. CCE-LTER is partnered with both the Birch Aquarium at Scripps and the Ocean Institute with its hands-on Ocean Education program. The Ocean Education program is an immersion-style program for K-12 students and teachers, and the Birch Aquarium serves as an outreach hub to connect the general public to research conducted at Scripps.

The Oceanographic Collections materials are widely used in classroom teaching at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). Many undergraduate and graduate courses taught at UCSD/SIO depend on these collection materials for classroom instruction which include:

  • SIO 10: The Earth
  • SIO 12: History of Earth & Evolution
  • SIO 15: Natural Disasters
  • SIO 16: Geology of the National Parks
  • SIO 45: Volcanoes
  • SIO 50: Introduction to Earth & Environmental Science
  • SIO 100: Introduction to Field Methods
  • SIO 101: California Coast Oceanography
  • SIO 102: Introduction to Geochemistry
  • SIO 104/255: Paleobiology and History of Life
  • SIO 105: Sedimentology & Stratigraphy
  • SIO 106: Introduction to Hydrogeology
  • SIO 120: Introduction to Mineralogy
  • SIO 134: Introduction to Biological Oceanography
  • BIEB 135: Aquatic Ecology
  • SIO 136: Marine Biology Laboratory
  • SIO 139: Research in Marine Biology
  • SIO 148/248: Evolution of Earth's Biosphere
  • SIO 152: Petrology and Petrography
  • SIO 160: Introduction to Tectonics
  • SIO 162: Structural Geology
  • SIO 170: Introduction to Volcanology
  • SIO 184/284: Marine Invertebrates
  • SIO 240: Marine Geology
  • SIO 247: Rock Magnetism & Paleomagnetism
  • SIO 255A: Topics in Paleobiology & History of Life
  • SIO 271A: Marine Zooplankton
  • SIO 275A: Benthic Ecology
  • SIO 275B: Natural History & Coastal Habitats
  • SIO 290: Marine Biology
  • SIO 294: Biology of Fishes