What are good classes to take during highschool for someone who wants to be marine biologist?

Question

i know obviously biology but im going into high school next year.

and i dont know what classes to take.

i cant ask my counciler because today is the first day of summer so everyones on vacation.

so can someone list good classes to take

and what exactly does a marine biologist do. i know the outline but what are the main things?

thnx.

please no rude comments =)

Answer 1

Take any science related courses your school offers: chemistry, physics, biology, physiology, etc.

Answer 2

i want to kno the same thing! im going into hs in 2 years, and want to be a marine biologist in the marine mammal branch. if u find out, then email me. thanks.

Answer 3

i do recommend you to have a good background in statistics. All general subjects incluiding ecology, biology, zoology are also welcome. But it is amazing how do you progress by knowing what to do with your own data...

Marine biologist are quite specialized nowadays, depends in what field do you like to work, but be prepared for long hours of field sampling in remote areas! good luck (excuse my english...)

Answer 4

Chemistry, physics, mathematics.  As much as possible for any scientific career.

Answer 5

As you already stated, obviously biology. Also, other sciences such as chemistry and physics as there can be quite an overlap between marine bio and oceanography and these subjects will be very helpful. As the first poster stated, statistics are extremely helpful, you will probably cover them in college but it is good to have some background knowledge. Even better would be if you could get some experience with statistical packages used on computers such as SPSS or Minitab as these are frequently used in data analysis, if you can take any computer classes that would encompass them, I would recommend taking them.

You should also look into whether there is a NOSB team at your highschool. NOSB is the National Ocean Science Bowl, it is a competition intended to increase knowledge of the oceans on the part of high school students, their teachers and parents.

Check out their website for more information:

http://www.nosb.org/

Now what does a marine biologist do?

Marine Biology is certainly a very interesting field and a very varied one as well!

Marine biologists study every aspect of the oceans and the life within them, and there are a lot of different career paths from studying tiny planktonic organisms over looking at chemical and physical processes in the ocean (though that is more oceanography) upto studying big charismatic megafauna like whales or sharks.

The last option is the one that is the one most people think of when they hear marine biology but it is very important to realise that this is only a very small part of marine biology and highly competitive at that. I think it would be safe to say the majority of marine biologists work with invertebrates, algae or other less charismatic vertebrates.

Not all marine biologists are field biologists (actually working out in nature with the animals) either but work in labs, lecture at universities, work for conservation NGOs (mainly paper and desk work) or work as environmental consultants for companies that may potentially have an impact on the environment.

For more infortmation: a good website dealing with marine biology is:

http://marinebio.org/

There is also a specific section dealing with education and career question if that is what you are interested in:

http://marinebio.org/MarineBio/Careers/

For discussing your interest in marine biology and asking questions I strongly recommend their forums:

http://planktonforums.org/

Answer 6

You wont have much of a selection.  What you need to do is get in the college track program.  You can take AP courses that way.  That's really all you need to do.  Just try to get A's and B's.