Course Essentials

Explores ocean processes, habitats, and organisms, including those of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Emphasis will be on ecological relationships, adaptations of organisms to their environments, and marine conservation efforts.

1. Compare and contrast marine habitats, and the major living and non-living components that structure those habitats.

2. Examine major phyla of marine organisms and consider their ecological roles and conservation status.

3. Evaluate the impacts of resource extraction (primarily living) from the oceans, and the effects of climate change and anthropogenic activities on ocean health.

Canvas and the internet

This online course will be conducted through Canvas, so you will need access to a computer and the Internet. You will submit all of the graded work through Canvas. Although this is an online course, you are welcome to visit the Cabrillo College campuses in Aptos and Watsonville and work there. Computers are available for students to use at the Cabrillo Library, the HUB, the Computer Technology Center (Bldg. 1400), Watsonville ILC , and Watsonville CTC. You can complete and submit your assignments from any of these spaces on campus.

Barring unforeseen circumstances and natural disasters, it is your responsibility to ensure that you have adequate internet access to submit your work. If for some reason you are unable to submit assignments from home due to internet connectivity problems, you can either come to campus or visit a coffee shop. To ensure that your assignments are received on time and not marked late, you should plan to submit work well before the deadline of 11:59 p.m. 

Other software

• Word processor: You will need to be able to create text documents. If you are working at the library or another site on the Cabrillo campus, you can use Microsoft Word on the school computers. Another free option is Google Docs. If you are working on an Apple computer, all of the Macs come loaded with Pages, which is Apple's word processing app.

• PDF reader: You will need to be able to download and read PDFs for this class. Adobe Acrobat is one free option that works across both Mac and PC platforms. Mac users also have Preview, included with every Apple computer, to read PDFs.

• PDF scanner: For most of the labs you will need to compile text (answers to questions) and images (photos and sketches) into a single PDF file, which will be submitted for the assignment. Genius Scan is one option that uses your smartphone as a scanner and easily compiles multiple files into a single PDF. This is exactly what you need to do!