Study of the oceans provides an ideal educational situation to teach freshmen the interdisciplinary nature of modern scientific inquiry. The oceans are loaded with chemistry, biology, physics, meteorology, and geology concepts and they are universally relevant to humanity's past, present, and future. In this presentation the author, a recent participant in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Teacher at Sea program (NOAA TAS), will describe his marine science research experiences aboard the NOAA research vessel McArthur II. The main charge of the research cruise was to measure salient water quality parameters and collect marine invertebrates along the Oregon Continental Shelf (OCS) at varying depths and distances from the coast from April 20-27, 2008. This time of year was chosen because it precedes the development of an upwelling/hypoxia event that is anticipated to develop later in the summer of 2008. From a faculty perspective gaining hands-on experience in the field is an important ally in improving science education. Another ally is the intellectual environment that is a natural part of an inherently interdisciplinary scientific endeavor such as marine science, which depends on the constant interaction among the disciplines of chemistry, biology, physics, geology, and engineering. Participation in the NOAA TAS program then was a first step in fostering educational innovation and in promoting ocean literacy in the classroom. The author will describe lecture and lab activities gained from his NOAA TAS experiences that will be implemented into the freshmen general chemistry curriculum.