Skidaway Institute of Oceanography

The joint program will enroll its first students for the fall semester of 2008. The majority of the classroom experiences will take place at GT’s Savannah campus, with selected field exercises and research experiences at the SkIO campus, on board SkIO’s R/V Savannah (92 ft UNOLS fleet research vessel) and in adjacent coastal environments. GT-Sav has extensive experience and investment in distance learning, and we plan to upgrade SkIO classroom space to have similar capability so that courses can easily be broadcast via high quality video to or from either campus. Initially this effort will lead to graduate degrees (MS and PhD) awarded by GT’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Courses will be taught and students advised by a joint team including both SkIO and GT-Sav faculty members. As the program grows, it is anticipated that other Schools within GT will participate.

Field experiences will be integrated into the curriculum. GT's coastal engineering courses have

Students deploy conductivity - temperature-depth (CTD) sensors mounted on a rosette of Niskin bottles used to collect discrete water samples for calibration of sensors and determination of nutrients by wet chemical analyses.

traditionally included nearshore and beach field trips to give students experience in data collection and analysis. SkIO’s R/V Savannah is frequently used for both research and educational missions. The introductory and capstone courses in the program will both include field components that involve use of the R/V Savannah, as will several other courses. Because this is a focused, coordinated curriculum, we can combine the field experiences of concurrent courses, thereby greatly reducing potential conflicts in student schedule and maximizing student participation in these activities.

Students in Paul Work's coastal engineering course deploy a box corer adapted to retrieve sandy sediments within intact porewaters.