Syllabus
Marine Species 101:
Course Syllabus
Fall 2010
Instructor: John Coney
Office Location
Office hours:
Email Address:
Course URL:
Class Hours:
MSB-115, or (via http://tinyurl.com/coneyroom)
M,W,F 5-6pm
Jconey@Hawaii.edu
http://www.uhhmop.hawaii.edu/otec645/index.html
5-6:50 pm, Thursdays
A. Description
This is a training course to teach students in the college level how to correctly identify over
200 common marine organisms. Audience is for college students looking at attending our
Quantitative Underwater Ecological Surveying Techniques (QUEST) field school held in late
May, or those interested in learning how to correctly ID common reef species.
B. Organization
We have broken this course into six modules;
1. Introduction, about the class, how best to learn from these pages.
2. Fish species module
3. Invertebrates species module
4. Limu or seaweeds species module
5. Quizzes, or feedback and
6. Projects and additional resources to study Hawaii's marine species.
C. Course Objectives
With completion of this course, students will be able to correctly identify over 200 Hawaiian
marine species, as well as correctly spell using common scientific names at least 80% of the
time.
D. Course Schedule of activities
Date (week)
Week 1
Description
Introductions, review of syllabus, course outcomes, course website and
blogs, first assignment using Google docs to create a community of
learners.
Week 2
Intro to scientific naming conventions, resources, final individual project
Week 3
Limu Section, notes on identifying limu, PowerPoint of limu species
Week 4
Short quiz on Limu, more review
Week 5
Limu mastery review, and quiz
Week 6
Inverts section, notes on identifying Inverts, PowerPoint of Inverts
Week 7
Short quiz on Inverts, more review
Week 8
Inverts mastery review and quiz
Week 9
Group project overview
Week 10
Fish section, notes on identifying fish, PowerPoint’s of fish species
Week 11
short quiz on fish
Week 12
Fish mastery review and quiz
Week 13
Final group project
Week 14
Video test of identifying marine species
Week 14
Review of marine species, discuss individual projects
Week 15
Final Exam, class evaluations
E. Required Text and Supplies
Required access to a network computer capable of reaching www.hawaii.edu, printer, word
processor, Suggested openoffice.org, or similar for presentations and word documents. Skype
and Java applications are used as well in this course. You will need a UH user account as well
as a Gmail account to access Google docs.
F. Suggested course materials
John Hoover, Hawaii sea creatures
John Hoover, Hawai’i’s Fish
Magruder, Seaweeds of Hawaii
http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/ReefAlgae/default.htm
G. Grading scheme (assessment)
Course is graded on a 100 points total and earns 3 college credits. This is earned by a
combination of Interactivity, quiz's, final test and projects.
Topic
Points (total 100)
Limu Quizzes
10
Inverts Quizzes
10
Fish Quizzes
10
Individual project
10
Group project
10
Interactivity, participation
10
Final Exam
40
Grading: A=90-100, B=80-89, C= 70-79, D=60-69, F= 79 or less
H. Class Rules of conduct
1. On time for class, if your not early, your late...
2. No distractions during class
3. Assignments submitted on time
4. Class reading need to be completed before class
I. Suggestions to succeed in this course
Interaction, self review, ask questions and participate are key elements to getting the most out
of this course.