How to Use This Book

This book provides a number of important tools for students, teachers, and ocean scientists interested in these topics. We designed it to be accessible, engaging, interactive, comprehensive, and understandable for all readers, no matter their previous experience with ocean science. If you discover something that would make the book better for you, by all means, contact us. We wrote it for you!

For Students

• one-column text for ease of reading on smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktops (though we recommend viewing figures on as large a screen as possible)
• minimal technical jargon (wherever possible)
• clear explanation of concepts using everyday analogies
• use of humor and a strong authorial voice to grab your attention
• numbered and colored subheadings to make it easier to find and refer to specific sections of the text
• call-out boxes to highlight main points within the text
• hyperlinked in-text references to help you appreciate the millennial-long history and global diversity of ocean science 
• wide margins for notetaking using Adobe Reader’s comment tool or making notes on printed copies
• clickable colored and bolded terms linked to an audio glossary so you can hear definitions without having to leave the page
• abundant supporting photos, figures, and illustrations with alt text and side-by-side captions to engage you mentally and emotionally
• glossary of all terms (audio link in future update)
• index to help you look up terms and concepts quickly
• resources for studying oceanography
• oceanography career guide

For Teachers

• web version of the book for use in the classroom or on devices not ideal for PDFs
• figure credits with hyperlinks to all photos, illustrations, and graphics; public domain and creative commons photos (including ours) may be downloaded individually for use in teaching and presentations
• hyperlink access to in-text references for deeper exploration of a topic (and so you can check our interpretations, too!)
• availability (for a small price) of teaching and assessment materials, including PowerPoint and Keynote slides, test banks (Microsoft Word, Canvas, Blackboard, Respondus), alt text and figure captions (Microsoft Word), and more at TeachersPayTeachers. Your purchase of these materials makes it possible for us to create and distribute this book to the people who need it the most, students.

For Ocean Scientists

• a comprehensive survey of ocean science for getting up to speed on unfamiliar topics
• hyperlinks to references for quick access to the most recent publications on a particular research topic (granted, it’s difficult to keep up, but we do our best, and if you can’t find something, contact Chamberlin)
• free use of more than 500 cartoons on all fields of ocean science, ideal for that first slide at your next talk