Sea Experience: Theoretical and Practical Summer Programs of Teacher Enhancement in Marine Science

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This 5-year SEA (Sea Education Association) project offers two intensive summer institutes each year - one for elementary school teachers and one for middle through high school science and mathematics teachers - in marine and nautical sciences, designed to provide participants with a general knowledge of marine sciences, ideas of field and lab work that can be implemented in the classroom and passed on to other teachers, and practical experience working at sea as part of a team conducting scientific research. Twenty- three elementary school teachers and twenty-three middle and high school teachers will be selected nationally each year to participate in the summer institutes, for a total of 230 teachers over the course of the project. The Sea Experience programs will begin with shore-based, three week components held in Woods Hole, MA at SEA's campus; here, teachers will participate in courses emphasizing basic concepts in physics, chemistry, geology and biology which can be conveyed to students through studies of the ocean. The final ten days of each program will be spent on board one of SEA;s fully equipped oceanographic research sailing vessels, where teachers will participate in the practical hands-on experience of carrying out research projects and in the operation of the vessels. Follow-up activities will include annual workshops for Sea Experiences participants, and each teacher will be committed to presenting two in-service training workshops in their home states. Teachers will be provided with a large variety of materials to use in their own teaching and will also be required to conduct two workshops for colleagues in their home schools. This proposal is appropriate for Teacher Enhancement because it is designed to enhance the science knowledge and teaching of participants, and because it provides practical experience working as part of a team conducting scientific research. Non-NSF Cost-sharing is approximately 34% of the amount requested from NSF.