Marine Science, BS

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The discipline of marine science is broad, deep, and rewarding. As a marine scientist, you’ll explore rivers, estuaries, and oceans, and you will analyze their interactions with the surrounding environment. You’ll sample marine life and measure the tides, waves, and currents. You may spend your days working on the water, in the lab, behind a computer, or a combination of all three. Through this diverse field of study, marine scientists strive to understand fundamental questions about our oceans and their interactions with the land. Marine scientists also apply this understanding to predict earth system changes, inform policy, and cultivate an ethos of environmental stewardship.

The SMCM marine science program takes full advantage of our unique waterfront location through intensive, experiential study of the St. Mary’s River and the Chesapeake Bay, which is just a short boat ride from campus. The college is also within a short drive of Mallows Bay National Marine Sanctuary and two National Estuarine Research Reserve sites. Numerous federal agencies, such as the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, are headquartered just down the road in Washington, D.C. Other research opportunities are available in laboratories at St. Mary’s College and through the internship programs at government and privately funded research laboratories in Maryland and elsewhere. A cooperative agreement between the College and the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science provides opportunities for St. Mary’s College students to take graduate courses and conduct research with faculty members at the nearby Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons, MD.

Learning Outcomes

• Demonstrate understanding of fundamental concepts in marine science, including principles of geological, physical, chemical, and biological processes in the marine environment.
• Demonstrate understanding of common laboratory, field, and modeling methods used in marine science.
• Demonstrate the ability to, formulate a falsifiable hypothesis, design an experiment or observational study to test your hypothesis, analyze your results in a statistically rigorous way, draw logical conclusions based on your analysis.
• Communicate effectively the concepts, methods, results, and conclusions of marine science research, in oral and written form, to specialists and the general public.
• Apply knowledge and skills learned to solve problems in marine geology, physics, chemistry, or biology.
• Demonstrate understanding of how human activities impact the marine environment, and how the marine environment impacts human activities.