marine biology courses?

[jenaddyman23]

can any one help me? id ld love to know a bit more about the under water world but i dont want to go to uni and do a whole degree. does any one know of any short courses i could take to better my understanding of the marine enviroment??

[mts0628]

Take the classes you want as an elective but make sure you don't exceed your credit hours per degree or you may end up paying a penalty for all of your extracurricular knowledge.

If not going for a degree, classes like Oceanography, Ecology, Biology, would be a start, but then Introduction to Marine Biology, Invertebrate Zoology, Marine Community Ecology, Ichthyology would certainly more wet your appetite- but at the Graduate level.

[simmonsjr]

Jenny, you can start off doing plenty through PADI. Here's a list of applicable specialties:

Project AWARE
AWARE - Fish Identification
Underwater Naturalist
National Geographic Diver
Coral Reef Conservation

Those would get you a quick and relatively inexpensive introduction.

Additionally, you might find this site helpful as well: Biology Learning Center -Online Science Courses (http://www.marinebiology.org/science.htm). For something more in depth, if you have the time, you could do a semester at sea program like Sea|mester - Global semester at sea programs for college students with Marine Biology & Oceanography (http://www.seamester.com/) or simply audit courses at a university if there is one near you that offers that (I don't know how the universities in England operate, but here in the States you can often pay a nominal fee to sit in on a course of interest).

Hope this helps.

Jason

[smellzlikefish]

Check around at your local community colleges for starters. The one I went to offered both Marine Science and Oceanography.

[hpbelize]

If you want to combine your education with a dive vacation you can choose several places in Belize like Southwater Caye, Hugh Parkey Foundation for Marine Awareness and Education, Glover's Reef, Smithsonian Institute has a research center at Carie Bow Caye and a couple others.