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Focus On...Scientists Engaged in Education and Outreach
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Have you visited the Scientists Making an Impact pages on COSEE.net lately? There are now five case studies posted, providing in-depth portraits of COSEE scientists who are also doing exemplary education and outreach. You’ll see scientists working with school districts, with diverse audiences, with citizen scientists, with coastal managers, with film crews and broadcast media, as they teach, mentor, train, and engage. What do COSEE scientists have to say about balancing efforts and rewards? Check out the case study Viewpoints sections. Are your grad students wondering how to get involved in education and outreach? Send them to the Collaborations sections. New case studies will continue to be posted monthly, so check back often! |
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| Network Topics |
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Inquiry Working Group Formed Ten ocean science educators and informal science leaders will serve on the new Inquiry Working Group (IWG). The IWG will review education materials and other resources, examine current dissemination activities by COSEE Centers across the nation, and will recommend ways to improve dissemination to the informal science education field. The goal of the IWG is to explore the opportunities and barriers to producing an ocean literate society, one that is able to participate in informed decision-making on ocean policy. For details contact the group Chair Dr. Alan Friedman, COSEE OCEAN co-PI.
Banana Slug CD Wins Award Only One Ocean, the new children’s educational music CD by the Banana Slug String Band, co-sponsored by COSEE, has been awarded a 2011 Parents’ Choice Award. Read more.
COSEE in Current Check out the inside back cover of the latest issue of Current. Many thanks go to David Mountain and the GLOBEC program who offered us a full page in this issue to advertise COSEE Summer 2011 programs. Thanks to all the Centers who provided information and to Romy Pizziconi who did a great job pulling it all together!
Teachers Needed to Field Test OS Sequence We're looking for middle school science teachers interested in being involved in field trials of the upcoming GEMS/MARE Ocean Sciences Sequence for Grades 6–8 focused on climate change. This new curriculum will provide middle school students with an engaging look at how the ocean impacts life on Earth. The units address a broad range of science standards, including National Science Education Standards, Ocean Literacy Essential Principles, and a range of state standards. The program is being developed with funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and with the participation of scientists from NOAA, the Rutgers University Institute of Marine & Coastal Sciences, as well as curriculum developers at the University of California, Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of Science. For more information contact Catherine Halversen.
Ocean Scientist Audio and Video Statements Needed The COSEE National Office is partnering with the Inner Space Center to develop the hardware, software, and related programming to connect U.S. oceanographic research vessels to informal science education institutions. Hardware installations and testing are currently taking place at two aquariums, Mystic and South Carolina, both members of the National COSEE Network and the Coastal Ecosystem Learning Center (CELC) Network. In addition to live programming, prerecorded programs will be available on demand. We are seeking input from the ocean scientist community in the form of short audio and video segments. This opportunity will feature ocean scientists completing the sentence, "I explore the ocean because..." Eventually, millions of people will have access to the programming through the network of CELC kiosks. If you know of ocean scientists who would like this opportunity to highlight their research for the public, please pass their contact information on to Andrea Gingras. |
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| News from the Sant Ocean Hall |
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Webcast Available On April 19 COSEE teamed with the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History to host a scientific panel focused on the Gulf of Mexico 2010 oil spill:Science Since the Spill: One Year After the Deepwater Horizon Oil Disaster. Dr. David Hollander, a chemical oceanographer from University of South Florida, led a panel of experts in discussing what happened, what we have learned, and the current status of the Gulf of Mexico one year after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill began. Visit the Ocean Portal to view the archived webcast of the event.
Ocean Hall Position Announced The COSEE Ocean Hall Educator position at the Smithsonian Institution's (SI) National Museum of Natural History has been advertised. This position provides an exciting opportunity to serve both the National COSEE Network and the SI!
Smithsonian Ocean Portal The Ocean Portal, developed by the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, is an interactive website that offers an introduction to ocean science, marine life, and a history of the ocean. The website provides lesson plans, activities, and resources for educators. |
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| COSEE National Office Updates |
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| Network Meeting The 2011 COSEE Network Meeting was held in Newport, Rhode Island, May 2-4. Approximately 90 members of the COSEE Network attended. Presentations addressing themes of broadening participation and using networks for collaborations were augmented by break-out sessions and discussion. Watch for a full report to come soon. |
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| Working Group Updates |
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Scientist Engagement Working Group The SEW-G has approved two more case studies, for Dr. Scott Glenn (Rutgers University, COSEE NOW) and Dr. Michael Kemp (University of Maryland, COSEE Coastal Trends). Case studies for Dr. Crystal Johnson (Louisiana State University, COSEE Central Gulf of Mexico) and Dr. Adina Paytan (University of California, COSEE California) are nearing completion. The production team just visited Dr. Isaac Ginis, (University of Rhode Island, COSEE National Office). Visits are scheduled with Dr. Michael Castellini (University of Fairbanks, COSEE Alaska), Dr. Joel Hoffman (Environmental Protection Agency, COSEE Great Lakes) and Dr. Jude Apple (Western Washington University, COSEE Pacific Partnerships). Please contact SEW-G Chair Jessie Kastler with questions, suggestions and comments (228-872--4269).
Evaluators Working Group has completed the second Network-wide COSEE Scientist Engagement Survey, which focuses on scientist/researchers engaged with COSEE during the 2010 calendar year. From the 872 invitations to take the online survey, we received 492 responses (a high 56% response rate). Read more.
Web Working Group This month the WWG began planning for the next round of upgrades to the Content Management System. For more information, contact Annette deCharon, WWG Chair.
ENTS Sub-Group The Excellence in Networking Tools Sub-Group (ENTs) recently held a Network-wide webinar, focusing on creative ways to add content to Center websites. During the Network meeting, ENTS members met to discuss ideas foir using social networking tools for marketing COSEE activities. For more information, contact one of the ENTs co-chairs Catherine Cramer and Carla Companion. |
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| COSEE at Conferences |
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| COSEE at SCANAS The abstract submission system as well as the application system for student travel scholarships for the 2011 SACNAS conference is now open. This year the conference will be held in San Jose, California from October 27-30. The deadline for students to submit abstracts and apply for a travel scholarship is May 12. If a student is participating in a summer REU-type program they will have until July 21 to submit an abstract and apply for a travel scholarship. Visit the conference website. If you have any questions, please contact Liesl Hotaling. |
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| Center News |
COSEE Alaska Inupiaq Region Students Win Ocean Science Fair Awards [details here]. And check out the Bering Sea Learning Resource Collection.
COSEE California POLYPPS, the collaborative partnership with COSEE-CA, will host its third annual Communicating Ocean Sciences training workshop in Hilo, HI on June 4-5, 2011. The workshop is designed to help scientists and educators enhance their skills in teaching and communicating about ocean sciences to diverse audiences in Hawaii through pedagogy and culture-based practices. Components of the workshop will include: Day 1: Theory and Practice of Teaching through Inquiry and Modeling Science, and Day 2: Contextualizing Ocean Science Learning for Hawaii. For more information contact Judy Lemus.
COSEE Coastal Trends Explore the new Coral Reef and Climate Change Module.
COSEE Great Lakes has just released a resource for comparative marine and freshwater science education. Trans-salinity Research Scientists Drs. Russell Cuhel and Carmen Aguilar are hosting the third session of COSEE Collaborative teacher workshops, 28 June – 2 July 2011. Of the 11 teacher participants, half may be from salty sites, all gathering to compare and contrast marine and freshwater ecologies and their driving factors. Application deadline June 1.
COSEE Great Lakes was featured in the most recent issue of Ohio SeaGrant’s publication Twineline. And educator Cindy Hagley received the St. Louis River Alliance Environmental Stewardship Award for her work with COSEE Great Lakes. [details]
COSEE OCEAN COSEE OCEAN’s efforts to implement an ocean education curriculum in an urban school district are underway. In late March, seven Boston Public School teachers met with a curriculum developer from Lawrence Hall of Science’s Great Explorations in Math and Science (GEMS) to explore the ocean through the Ocean Science Sequence (OSS) for grades 3-5. Each of the three units addresses a different question about the ocean: - Unit 1: What kind of place is the ocean?
- Unit 2: What is life like in the ocean?
- Unit 3: How are humans and the ocean interconnected?
This spring, two teachers will pilot each unit, and one teacher will pilot all three units. The teachers will meet regularly to discuss successes and challenges, and will provide important feedback on how to integrate the OSS into the existing curriculum. The feedback from this spring will help direct efforts to implement the curriculum more broadly in the Boston and Milton public school districts in 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 school years. Concurrent with the introduction of the OSS material this spring, COSEE OCEAN will also be reviewing the curriculum and talking with the piloting teachers to identify opportunities for developing and incorporating videos from scientists to enhance existing materials.
The Graduate students for Ocean Education (GrOE) Facebook page has new content posted daily, and is growing its fan base.
COSEE Ocean Systems On May 13th Ocean Systems and Ocean Learning Communities hosted the first "Many Learning Pathways in Ocean Science" webinar in partnership with the Institute for Broadening Participation. The webinar featured Dr. Christina De La Rocha (Marine Environmental Sciences Laboratory, Brest, France) and Phil Bell and Carrie Tzou (Ocean Learning Communities). Dr. De La Rocha shared her challenges and lessons learned as she traveled through a winding and changing career path. Ocean Learning Communities presenters gave the audience insight into the strategies and modes that can be used to interact with and support underrepresented students in STEM educational activities and careers. For anyone in COSEE that was unable to attend, the webinar will be archived on the COSEE-OS website in the coming weeks.
To celebrate the upcoming launch of the Aquarius/SAC-D satellite, COSEE-OS will present a workshop for K-12 educators to be held at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California, June 3-4, 2011. Aquarius will employ advanced technologies to make NASA's first space-based measurements of ocean salinity across the globe - an important observation for ocean and climate studies. From 650 kilometers (400 miles) above Earth's surface, Aquarius will detect changes in ocean salinity as small as a pinch of salt in a gallon of water.
COSEE Pacific Partnerships During the second week of August 2011, COSEE-PP will support a 4 – 5 day workshop designed to provide community college instructors from the Pacific Islands with an up-to-date understanding of the many rapid advances that have been made in recent decades in understanding the critically important roles of microorganisms in the ecology of the oceans and the biology of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms that inhabit the seas. [details]
COSEE TEK announces its new website and is working on the development of an online database of ocean technology education resources.
COSEE West and the COSEE West Colorado Collaborative are partnering in a teacher exchange and are offering two teacher workshop opportunities, one in Boulder, Colorado and one in Los Angeles, California. This year funding is available to support 5 Southern California teachers to go to Boulder, Colorado and 5 Colorado teachers to go to Los Angeles, California to attend these workshops. Information on the Boulder Workshop, Exploring Climate Connections between the Global Ocean and Climate, Ecosystems & Economy, here; flyer for the Los Angeles Ocean Observing Systems Institute, here. |
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| Resources |
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Survey on Value of Informal Science Education Oregon State University recently released results of a survey confirming enormous value of science museums, “free choice” learning. [more]
Ocean Observatories Initiative Scientist Discusses Bringing the Internet to the Ocean Deborah Kelley, professor of oceanography at the University of Washington and associate director for science for the Regional Scales Nodes component of the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), presented a lecture on the OOI program in April as part of the University of Rhode Island (URI) Vetlesen Lecture Series on the “State of the Oceans.” Kelley’s presentation, “Bringing the Internet to the Oceans,” was given in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the Graduate School of Oceanography. Her talk focused on the research and educational potential of the OOI. Click here to view the video of the lecture.
NOAA Investment in Education Lecture Ten years ago, NOAA established an Education Council to coordinate activities across the agency and elevate the education portfolio. So what is the status of NOAA's investment in education? Come hear Marlene Kaplan, Vice Chair of the Education Council, discuss accomplishments and opportunities resulting from these efforts at the agency and interagency level. In addition, Jeannine Montgomery of the Education Outreach Center will discuss how you can get involved in this community [details]
Alan Alda on Communicating Science On March 1, six-time Emmy Award-winner Alan Alda visited NSF to speak about the importance of effective science communication. Alda's talk, titled "Helping the Public Get Beyond a Blind Date With Science," drew upon his long-time interest in science, his career in acting, writing, and directing, and his work in promoting a greater public understanding of science. He discussed his current work with scientists, and described how teaching acting techniques improved scientists’ communication skills. View his talk online.
Report from Public Policy Forum The Consortium for Ocean Leadership has released a summary report from the 2011 Public Policy Forum held on March 9, 2011. This forum focused on “Lessons Learned and Opportunities from the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico.” The report features summaries of all presentations as well as biographies of our speakers and photos from the event.
STEM Education Data and Trends Online Tool The National Science Board presents this web-based statistical tool for the STEM education communities. The new tool provides easy access to data for parents, students, guidance counselors, teachers and other stakeholders in pre-college and undergraduate STEM education, using data from the latest volume of Science and Engineering Indicators. Visit STEM Education Data and Trends.
Earth Gauge is a free information service designed to make it easy to talk about links between weather and environment. In keeping with National Environmental Education Week's 2011 theme, Ocean Connections, broadcast meteorologists from across the United States have contributed videos explaining the ocean's role in weather in their regions and posted them on the website.
World Ocean Radio Now Available on iTunes W2O’s weekly radio broadcast, World Ocean Radio, is now on ITunes. Each 3 to 5-minute radio broadcast covers a broad spectrum of ocean issues from science and education to advocacy and exemplary projects. |
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Contribute to CNN! Send news and announcements of interest to the COSEE Network community to the editor, Catherine Cramer.
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| COSEE Centers and Council Representatives |
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| COSEE Alaska (Nora Deans, North Pacific Research Board) |
| COSEE California (Craig Strang, UC Berkeley) |
| COSEE Central Gulf of Mexico (Sharon Walker, Institute for Marine Mammal Studies) |
| COSEE Coastal Trends (Laura Murray, U of Maryland Center for Environmental Science) |
| COSEE Florida (Edwin Massey, Indian River State College) |
| COSEE Great Lakes (Rosanne Fortner, Ohio State University) |
| COSEE Networked Ocean World World (Janice McDonnell, Rutgers University) |
| COSEE OCEAN (Bob Chen, University of Massachusetts) |
| COSEE Ocean Learning Communities (Phil Bell, University of Washington) |
| COSEE Ocean Systems (Annette deCharon, Darling Marine Center, University of Maine) |
| COSEE Pacific Partnerships (Jan Hodder, Oregon Institute of Marine Biology) |
| COSEE SouthEast (Lundie Spence, South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium) |
| COSEE TEK (Ivar Babb, University of Connecticut) |
| COSEE West (Linda Duguay, University of Southern California) |
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