I find it really hard to believe that I have written about my adventures in oceanography and teaching for two years already. And what a journey it has been! It all started out when I wanted a place to document my ideas for cool experiments, teaching methods, or just pictures of oceanographic phenomena, all of which I wanted to keep to use in future teaching. And a lot of stuff has accumulated over the last two years! Am I glad that I decided on a semi-structured way of documenting them! My facebook feed or desktop on my computer are nowhere near as manageable as this blog.
Collecting all that stuff in a public space has allowed me to “meet” many amazing people who are interested in teaching oceanography, and it has given me the opportunity to give talks and to run workshops for teachers and students, which I enjoy tremendously. Ultimately, it helped me recognize my long-term professional goal: Living in a light house, watching the ocean and thinking and writing about teaching oceanography, occasionally giving a workshop or two. And of course having all of you over to play testing new experiments, discuss marine science education and STEM education more generally, develop new concepts and – of course! – enjoy the sunsets over the sea! Now where am I going to find that light house? :-)
And it is interesting to look at how the content of my blog has changed, and my concept of what this blog is all about. I don’t really plan what to blog about, I just write about what strikes me as interesting any given day. However, pattern emerge.
About a year ago I assembled the image below to illustrate what “adventures in oceanography and teaching” was about: demonstrations in large tanks, experiments (in smaller tanks and plastic cups, for students and pupils) and observation of phenomena, all related to oceanography and to teaching of oceanography.
This is how I perceived “adventures in oceanography and teaching” in april 2014
And now, one year later, I still love collecting and presenting the demonstrations, experiments and observations. Yet right now, while I still include that stuff and want to continue doing so, I’ve included more and more thoughts on teaching methods, reviews of recent literature on teaching and learning, and observations that are related to fluid dynamics more so than oceanography. And I think over the next year, I would like to write more on concrete examples of good course design and what does and does not work, and why. What do you think, my dear readers, what would you like to read about on here?
P.S.: I have recently added a page to collect the amazing feedback I am getting. If you would like to add something (and I am still amazed how much credibility a blog and the documented feedback on it give you! ;-)), please head over here.
P.P.S.: A&I, herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Hochzeitstag! Hätten Eure süßen Kinder nicht wie die Engel geschlafen anstatt den Babysitter zu beschäftigen, wer weiss ob ich jemals diesen Blog angefangen hätte?