Teaching Collection

We maintain a teaching collection of several thousand specimens representing over a hundred fish families.  Students examine, compare and learn to identify these during our Systematics of Fishes (FW316) and Ichthyology (FW315) courses. Recent digitization projects have virtualized many of these specimens in two and three dimensions, thereby allowing students enrolled in face-to-face, remote and online versions of these classes to access them and learn from anywhere in the world at any time of day.

You can read more about our approach to teaching ichthyology online using a virtual specimen collection in our recent publication in Ichthyology and Herpetology.

By clicking on these models, you can rotate and view them in any direction.

    

 Sawback Poacher (Laptagonus frenatus) by osuecampus on Sketchfab                                                           Blepsias Cirrhosus - 8545 by osuecampus on Sketchfab        

 

For more information about these courses or the virtual teaching collection, please contact Brian Sidlauskas.   

We thank the US National Science Foundation (DBI-1057452) and a Learning Innovation Grant from Oregon State University’s Office of Information and Technology for funding these virtualization efforts.

View more of the interactive digital models.

 

Brian Sidlauskas uses a lightboard that has been created for remote and online teaching.
A small sample of jars contained cleared and stained skeletons from the teaching collection.