This award provides renewed funding for the Centers for Ocean Science Education Excellence - Ocean Systems (COSEE-OS). Through its ongoing efforts, COSEE-OS has identified key areas for future growth, including: (i) facilitating the creation of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) resources that are conceptually linked to ocean-climate content; (ii) scaling up ocean scientists' impacts by taking advantage of networking infrastructure; and (iii) building tools to assess the quality of consensus-based products created by diverse communities.
The Center will expand its successful model of creating software that is flexible, transferrable, and user focused for the ocean science community. OS will share this model via workshops for scientists at other COSEE's. OS will scale up its regional initiatives to have national impact, with a focus on rural and inland audiences. In addition, a new partnership with the Institute for Broadening Participation is improving engagement of underrepresented minorities in OS opportunities, and will serve as a model for the greater Network. By supporting existing educational programs, OS will assist two small, but prestigious, research laboratories -- Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory and Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences -- in meeting their goal of providing effective research experiences for K-12 educators and "young scientists" in training. The Center's goal is to build Capacity nationwide, honing individuals' abilities to develop effective "Broader Impacts" (BI) activities. This is accomplished, in part, by engaging informal education institution partners such as Seacoast Science Center (SSC) and New England Aquarium (NEAq) to aid in the development of BI activities with scientists. The Center also supports the New England Ocean Sciences Education Collaborative (NEOSEC), a diverse network of over 40 organizations coordinated by NEAq, to build regional capacity by training its educators in planning and implementing BI activities for ocean scientists. This ensures that the content and products of current ocean science research can efficiently reach a broad audience in a timely fashion.
A newly formalized partnership with the Northeastern Regional Association of Coastal and Ocean Observing Systems (NERACOOS) unites the New England cadre of ocean science educators and their students to the NERACOOS scientists, providing opportunities to increase the BI for scientists. The Center's joint efforts with New England regional Sea Grant Extension staff to field test new analytical tools that aid consensus building about climate change issues in New England coastal communities is another opportunity for scientists to increase their BI activities.
The intended overall outcome of the three-year COSEE-OS Broader Impacts effort was: to test and refine a set of recommendations and guidelines to assist scientists in the design of relevant, meaningful and enduring Broader Impact activities with small informal science education centers. to develop publishable and 'presentable' guidelines (recommendations) for facilitating (increasing and making more effective) scientist/informal education site Broader Impact collaborations. Development of the Recommendations The development of the recommendations identified in the outcomes was initiated through a day-long gathering of scientists and informal educators in March of 2011 with the purpose of investigating the nature of the BI relationship. A number of group processes were used to identify the characteristics of scientist/educator Broader Impact relationships. The outcome of the gathering was a detailed set of notes about actual scientist/educator relationships. These notes not only included a list of the characteristics of the relationship, but analysis by the participants about the importance of the identified characteristics to the success of the relationship. The initial plan was to re-develop the observations from the gathering and publish them as a set of recommendations. Further analysis of the observations suggested a concept map would provide and better guide to the characteristics of a successful relationship, and an opportunity to create an interactive tool with embedded resources that could act as a significant on-line resource to those interested in pursuing a scientist/educator Broader Impact collaboration. The concept map was developed utilizing the Center for Ocean Science Education Excellence - Ocean Systems concept map building tool (CLIMB) and exists within the Center’s Public Maps. Broader Impact Collaboration Training Utilizing the Concept Map Two workshops and two presentations were used to introduce the Broader Impacts Concept Map to scientists and informal educators to elicit user feedback and suggestions for imbedded resources. The map was first introduced to approximately 35 educators and scientists at a 2011 workshop at the Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. Participants were provided a detailed introduction to the map, examples of the embedded resources, and suggestions for how the map might be used to develop a successful Broader Impacts collaboration. Feedback about the map was very positive and a number of good suggestions were made that improved the map. A presentation at the 2012 National Marine Educators Association Conference in Anchorage, Alaska included approximately a dozen marine educators from around the country. Participants were introduced to the map and encouraged to interact with the embedded resources. Feedback was again very positive and several requests for support to use the tool in subsequent events were fulfilled. The map was also exhibited at the New England Ocean Science Education Collaborative Summit in the Fall of 2012. A final workshop with early-career scientists was held in the spring of 2013. Around twenty early career scientists were trained on Broader Impacts utilizing the concept map and other COSEE-developed resources. Feedback again indicated that users found the map to be a helpful tool in the development of a Broader Impact component to a proposal. Recommendations for Future Use of the Tool The Broader Impact Concept Maps are designed to allow for users to provide additional resources that can be embedded in the map to continue its growth and increase its usefulness. The interactive nature of the tool with users, and the capacity to grow and become more useful was identified by many users as a strength of the design. The maps are not easy to find, and their use is predicated on the assumption that scientists, educators, and others will look for resources to help build a Broader Impact collaboration. The developers believe that including this tool in more generalized Broader Impact training can help increase the quality of subsequent collaborations, and their impacts. The concept map may be found at http://cosee.umaine.edu/climb/index.cfm
