Oceanography Lab Syllabus

Fall, 2008

Welcome to the Oceanography Lab. Throughout the semester, we will meet once each week for laboratory exercises. It is my goal to provide you with an interesting, challenging, and valuable supplement to the lecture portion of the class. Many people, particularly hands-on learners, find the lab experience to be a rewarding way to assimilate information and build lasting connections to the lecture topics. I hope you will find this to be the case.

I do my best to be available to students outside of class. I maintain ten standard office hours per week that are posted on my office door, PA 126. These office hours are dictated by my overall schedule; if they aren't compatible with your needs, I also take appointments. My office phone number is 457-5266. I have voice mail that I check frequently, so leave me a message any time. My E-mail is jmeyers@winona.edu; I check it frequently.

Each lab will graded on a basis of 10 points. Your lab grade will be the percentage of the points you receive out of the total points possible. This grade will count 25% of your final course grade.

Mr. Aaron Magnuson will be our lab assistant this semester. You may reach him at ALMagnuson06@winona.edu.

CAVEATS

1. Be cognizant that our meeting locations may vary depending on each week's activities. I will announce meeting locations in lab. Unless I tell you otherwise, we meet in SLC 137.

2. Laboratory attendance is required. No unexcused absences are permitted in laboratory without penalty. For each unexcused laboratory absence, lab work cannot be "made up" and you will lose credit for that assignment.

The course syllabus clarifies the definition of excused and unexcused absences. Excused absences must be approved by the laboratory instructor prior to the session missed. If the absence is health related, you must obtain documentation from the health center or another physician. If you miss a laboratory session with an excused absence, you must see the instructor in advance for make-up details.

Students enrolled in a laboratory section who miss more than three lab sessions, or fail to complete more than three laboratory exercises by the assigned deadlines, automatically fail the course.

3. All laboratory exercises must be submitted in hard copy, using printouts from MS WORD.

4. We will not accept late work;. Assignments will be collected at the beginning of the lab session. If the assignment is not turned in on time, no credit will be given.

5. Although we will work in pairs for many exercises, the work you turn in must be your own. Plagiarism from one another or from outside sources is a violation of our academic honesty policy, and will dealt with accordingly. For the first violation, you will receive a zero for the work as well as a warning.

6. Your lab work will be graded based upon the following:

• Your conduct in the laboratory, including careful following of instructions and procedures and careful measurement, if applicable.
• Quality of data presentation
• Quality of data processing
• Quality of analysis and interpretation of data

7. You will receive only one grade for the course that combines both lecture and laboratory work. The laboratory component of your grade will be based on my evaluation of your laboratory assignments. There are no lab exams.

8. Our tentative schedule is included in the course assignment page. Topics will generally coincide with the topic of our lecture sessions that week. This will provide hands-on experience with the lecture material, and will also give you considerable reinforcement.