Experienced teacher and researcher Gillian Stewart (Queens College) believes that oceanography deserves an updated approach to how it is taught at the introductory level. Her interdisciplinary approach and realms-based structure excites and engages students while better highlighting connections and intersections.

With innovative pedagogical features, Oceanography: An Interdisciplinary Approach takes strategies that Gillian has been using successfully in her classroom for 20 years to put student learning at the forefront while expressing the unique nature of oceanography.   

It more effectively engages your students who aren’t (yet) natural science majors. 

Many students get lost in the siloed and encyclopedic approach of existing textbooks. Gillian’s contemporary and highly visual book, approachable narrative voice, and storytelling keeps your students’ attention and puts learning at the forefront. With interactive features in our Norton Illumine Ebook, students explore ocean processes through multimedia elements. 

It presents course concepts in an integrated, applied, and ocean-realms format.  

This format allows your students to draw connections between the invisible and mysterious processes in marine chemistry, geology, and physics to the visible and familiar examples of marine biology, leading to better concept retention and deeper understanding. Since most students are wanting to learn about biological aspects, this book hooks them early.  

It has guidance for mastering concepts and building quantitative literacy skills. 

Dynamic Ocean Spotlight features in the text incorporate data interpretation and analysis along with answer-specific feedback to give students consistent practice with quantitative literacy. Check Your Understanding questions at the end of every section and quantitative literacy questions in Smartwork offer a wide array of question types that engage different modes of thinking.  

It integrates climate change as a theme throughout the text.

Unlike classic textbooks that leave anthropogenic climate change to the last chapter, this book integrates the movement of carbon and heat into each section. Instead of causing readers to lose hope, Gillian educates students about the world around them, celebrates the diversity of scientists pushing the field forward, and encourages creative thinking about solutions. 

Gillian Stewart is a biogeochemist with interest in the interactions between organisms and elemental cycling, particularly in the ocean. Her work sheds light on the mechanisms of contaminant accumulation in ecosystems and the ocean’s potential to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide. She has pursued regional environmental contaminant studies, done local research on the impacts of anthropogenic regional warming, and continues her work on large-scale oceanographic questions. She has also been an active participant in the international GEOTRACES project. 

Gillian’s background as a biogeochemist informs her thinking of the pillars of oceanography in an integrated way and allows her to present the course concepts to students in a format that is cohesive and applied. She has taught oceanography courses for the past 20 years, at a variety of institutions, and this textbook reflects her teaching of oceanography from a more modern, interdisciplinary approach.