Teaching Marine Science Skills at the Introductory and Advanced Levels, Lake Champlain, Vermont USA

Hands-on experiential learning was and still is the mode for teaching in Middlebury College’s geology courses, particularly Oceanography and Marine Geology. To achieve that, the College has had several research vessels since the early 1970’s. The original 24’ vessel (Bruno Schmidt) was replaced in 1985 with the R/V Baldwin; a 32’ vessel with a fully equipped suite of marine equipment including CTD, side-scan sonar, sub-bottom profiler, ROV, met station, coring devices, computers and navigation. Over 600+ students used the R/V Baldwin in a variety of geology courses; mainly Oceanography and Marine Geology. In 2010, Middlebury College received an NSF –ARRA grant (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) to replace the ailing R/V Baldwin with a floating state-of-the art 48’ aluminum catamaran (the R/V Folger) with both laboratory and classroom settings. The R/V Folger was further equipped with newer instrumentation such as multi-beam echo sounder (MBES) and CTD/Rosette system. Labs are organized around a research team composed of rotating principal investigators, navigation and instrument specialists, as well as deck crew. Each lab choses one of four general topics to investigate; 1) circulation dynamics (drogues, drifters ADCPs, and CTD), 2) bottom bathymetry (Chirp and side-scan sonars, multibeam, sediment grabs, coring and ROV), 3) thermal variability ( CTD, temperature sensors, sub-surface moorings) 4) chemistry (CTD, rain and basin-wide water sampling) or 5) Paleoclimate change (Chirp sonar and cores). Sites are selected to provide new cutting-edge research for their chosen topic. Students rotate through every position over the course of the semester with the research as an overarching goal. Post-processing of data and a final presentation in front of their peers culminates the course. Over the last 25 years, these introductory oceanography and advance marine geology classes has discovered new bathymetric features, underwater landslides and slumps, submerged terraces, coastal jets and cross-lake circulation patterns, as well as many sedimentary bedforms such as furrows and lacustrine sediment drifts.