GeoEd: Teachers Exploring Coastal Hazards and Resilience

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Mississippi State University's Center for Science, Mathematics & Technology (CSMT) and the Northern Gulf Institute (NGI) are collaborating to enhance K-12 instruction in Earth science through a teacher enhancement program on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Using an Earth systems approach, Teachers Exploring Coastal Hazards and Resilience is increasing teachers' understanding of coastal hazards and resilience along the Northern Gulf of Mexico, as well as introduce them to geoscience career opportunities that may benefit their students. Goals of the program are to deliver Earth science content that connects geoscience education to local conditions and ecosystems, enhance teacher knowledge of geoscience careers, develop lesson plans adapting workshop activities to the classroom, and increase student interest in geoscience careers. During two-week summer workshops, 40 in-service science teachers in grades 5-8 (20 each summer) from the St. Tammany and Orleans Parish districts in Louisiana and school districts in Hancock, Harrison, and Jackson counties in Mississippi are participating in hands-on activities and lesson plan preparation. The workshops are being conducted on location at NOAA (National Data Buoy Center, National Coastal Data Development Center, National Weather Service, and Fisheries Service), Naval Oceanographic Office, Naval Research Laboratory, NASA, University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Research Center, and Dauphin Island Sea Laboratory. Teachers participate in two online follow-up sessions during each academic school year.