Students at COA have a wide range of interests in coastlines, oceans, and the organisms living there. Students can enhance their understanding of the marine environment from a variety of perspectives, including scientific, cultural and historical, and can find energetic and enthusiastic faculty to guide their studies in these areas. Because we have no specific majors at the college, students are able to combine classes from a variety of areas to create their own curriculum from their combination of interests. Most of the classes that specialize in marine studies are science-based courses, but students often combine these interests with courses in policy, cultural anthropology, education, and art.

To help students understand the possibilities that exist in marine studies, we encourage you to explore the links to the courses and other academic and research opportunities that focus on marine studies. We also have links to two resources on campus: Allied Whale, which is a non-profit specializing in training and research in marine mammalogy that is based at COA, and the Island Research Center, which focuses on the flora and fauna on and around the Maine coastline, especially the offshore Islands.

Recently, thanks to grant support from the U.S. Dept. of Education and the Henry Luce Foundation we have offered Summer Workshops in Field Ecology for Teachers.