Project COOL: Where communities and academia come together

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Project COOL: Chemical Oceanography Outside the Lab brings together geoscientists, undergraduate students and middle school youth. The program begins with professional development and curriculum design workshops for geoscientists who teach (e.g. professors, postdocs). Then a course at the University of Washington is offered to geoscience majors at both the undergraduate and graduate level through the UW's "Pipeline Project". Finally, participants opt into participating in an Out of School Time (OST) Program run through Seattle Parks and Recreation and the Seattle Public School District. Project COOL OST is offered at multiple Seattle area middle schools and will engage underrepresented youth in authentic scientific research through collaboration with SoundCitizen (http://soundcitizen.org), a university-housed citizen science collective that fosters public involvement in geosciences research. This project will: a) create a scientifically-grounded lab and field research experience for middle school youth at a time when data shows they are consciously and unconsciously making decisions about the role of STEM science in their futures; b) scientifically investigate identity development, learning practices and engagement for both the middle school youth and the undergraduate student scientists that participate together in scientific research; and, c) produce high quality data and information that will be used by the aquatic chemists leading the teams to further research and educational missions. This project is driven by two objectives; a need to provide geosciences opportunities and mentoring for scientists and students at different career and educational stages (specifically professors, undergraduate students and middle school youth), and a need to develop measurement models and methods that can be used across programs to further understand how youth learn from place-based programs.