TY - JOUR
AU - Hardy, Penelope K.
AB - PENELOPE K. HARDY* Studying the deep ocean is difficult. Accessing even the surface requires special technologies and training; reaching down into the depths to sound or sample is harder still. Technology is not a simple solution; the scientist must have some sense of what they are looking for. How you imagine the bottom decides the length of your line, the design of your samplers, and your interpretation of the results. This presents a conundrum when teaching the history of ocean science. Students often think of science as establishing factual certainty, forgetting, while investigators inch their way toward new interpretations of the world, that certainty and facts are neither guaranteed nor immediate outcomes. Then there is the difficulty we moderns have in stepping out of our current circum- stances to understand the past. Finally, there’s the ocean itself. Very few students at my regional university, almost 700 miles from the nearest ocean, have ever experienced the sea (NileGuide, www.nileguide.com/ocean/La- Crosse-WI). How, then, to teach history of ocean science when both the past and the ocean are distant from their experience? I faced this challenge in the fall of 2022 when I taught a new course called “Knowing the Oceans: A 
TI - Thinking Inside the Box
JO - Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences
DO - 10.1525/hsns.2024.54.1.105
DA - 2024-02-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/university-of-california-press/thinking-inside-the-box-OvQM0vIvj4
SP - 105
EP - 108
VL - 54
IS - 1
DP - DeepDyve
ER -