Youth & the Ocean: Teaming High School and Graduate Students Together for Coastal Investigations

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The Center for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence, California at Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California, Berkeley and the University of California Santa Cruz are leveraging the NSF OEDG-funded project, "Reducing Barriers to Academic Achievement & Marine Geosciences Careers: Developing a Model Middle School Program Integrating Marine Geosciences & Literacy" Grant #GEO-0703812 (also known as "Youth & the Ocean!"), by maintaining continuity with middle school student participants as they enter their high school years. This two-year pilot project, Youth & the Ocean: Teaming High School & Graduate Students Together for Coastal Investigations, develops a model inquiry-based geosciences education program that engages underrepresented high school students in a long-term intertidal monitoring project and a related weeklong, inquiry-based, residential research program facilitated by graduate student mentors. This project provides 24 underrepresented high school students with opportunities to increase their interest in, exposure to, and understanding of geosciences, improving the likelihood that these students will pursue geosciences fields of study or careers. The project provides 12 geoscience graduate students with training and practice in mentoring high school students to increase their understanding of the critical importance of incorporating rigorous education and outreach into their research endeavors as future scientists. The project also serves to develop and field-test a replicable, inquiry-based geosciences education program that can be widely used as an effective model for university marine science laboratories to fulfill their outreach and public education missions.