Collaborative Research: COSEE: Ocean Communities in Education And social Networks (COSEE-OCEAN)

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The University of Massachusetts, American Society of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), New York Hall of Science, and Boston Public Schools propose a thematic COSEE Center, that will greatly broaden the impacts of the COSEE Network. COSEE-OCEAN will use existing social and professional relationships to strategically engage ocean scientists in education and outreach activities by offering them professional development workshops at annual ASLO meetings and connecting them to COSEE Network outreach activities. COSEE-OCEAN will efficiently leverage these existing networks to expand and enhance a two-way exchange of innovation, experience, educational products, professional development models and best practices between COSEE and mainstream STEM formal and informal education communities. Our vision is that within five years, all ocean scientists will be aware of and have access to education and outreach opportunities within the COSEE Network; the COSEE Network will be able to exchange knowledge and resources with STEM programs nationwide; informal education institutions will have increased their capacity to address public ocean literacy; and a model for implementing a high quality ocean curriculum in diverse, non-coastal urban school districts will be widely disseminated. Our goals are:1)To engage more Ocean Scientists in high quality education and outreach opportunities provided by the COSEE Network, 2) To deliver high quality Ocean Science instructional materials to a diverse audience in large urban school districts, especially in non-coastal states, and 3) To promote Ocean Literacy through a network of Informal Science Education institutions and individuals. Intellectual merits of COSEE-OCEAN are to strategically strengthen the interactions between existing networks in order to catalytically utilize COSEE resources in a broader context and to gain capacity from the networks' output, COSEE-OCEAN aims to reach ALL ocean scientists, to target under-represented minority students in urban school districts, to effectively engage students in non-coastal states, and to form connections between existing educational networks. Broader impacts of this proposal include expanding the COSEE Network to include existing networks of ocean scientists (ASLO), informal educators (ASTC, CAISE), and urban educators (Lawrence Hall of Science and Boston Public Schools), which will strengthen the capacity of that overall network to deliver high quality ocean education to K-12 and public audiences. By using distance learning and working with urban school districts in non-coastal states, we will vastly broaden the reach of COSEE to include a diverse population of students who do not have opportunities to directly experience the ocean. In addition, we will link effectively with COSEE-China to extend the reach of COSEE beyond US borders.