This effort extends the activities of the Center for Ocean Science Education Excellence: Ocean Learning Communities (COSEE-OLC) located in Washington state. COSEE-OLC fosters the development of communities around ocean issues. It engages these communities, which include the general public and students of all levels, by organizing learning activities across a broad range of informal and formal settings. Throughout the proposed efforts we will work to increase participation of underrepresented persons in ocean research and education, especially through citizen science and associated science learning experiences.
We have developed a strong relationship with the Puget Sound region's Marine Volunteer Community (MVC) with whom we engage in ocean awareness and research activities. The MVC has a high amplification factor owing to its broad reach to families and schools visiting beaches up and down the coast and Puget Sound. Second, we will continue to study how and why people learn about the ocean in formal and informal situations in ways that are personally consequential, and we will promote the interdisciplinary Learning Sciences research perspective more generally. We will leverage both of these activities to develop tools and approaches that support scientifically and educationally rigorous citizen science efforts on a variety of ocean research topics.
We will engage diverse K-12 students, teachers and adult volunteers in citizen science research and associated learning experiences in partnership with ocean scientists. Learning scientists and informal education staff will design and study educational experiences and curricula to support meaningful learning about the ocean at the Seattle Aquarium, in classrooms, and out in the field. These efforts will include collaboration with programs and institutions already engaged in citizen science to help strengthen and extend the reach of such efforts. Resources and publications will be developed to promote these educational models more broadly.
COSEE Ocean Learning Communities (COSEE-OLC) cultivated and studied Ocean Learning Communities; interdisciplinary collaborations through which current ocean research was used to increase ocean literacy. Citizens learned about current ocean research; ocean scientists improved communication of their research; and learning scientists investigated how people learn and teach marine science. COSEE-OLCs core mission was three-fold, to: Foster community development around ocean issues and engage communities in efforts to bring the latest scientific information about the ocean to the general public Study the act of learning in formal and informal situations, and bring a Learning Sciences lens to National COSEE efforts Develop tools to help scientists engage with the general public in informal venues, and establish science-focused Citizen Science efforts that combine the interests and activities of scientists with the power of a large marine volunteer workforce to help collect data. Our Core Signature Events were programs, workshops and efforts that integrated the Center’s collaborations. Our Catalytic Programs were workshops and events that promoted deep learning for K-12, scientists, public audiences. Our Leveraged Programs are workshops and events already in existence prior to COSEE-OLC support that provide an opportunity for our center’s involvement and enrichment. COSEE-OLC has a strong relationship with the Puget Sound region’s Marine Volunteer Community (MVC), which is made up of various marine centers, organizations and institutions with many hundreds of volunteers. Our activities had a high amplification factor owing to the MVC’s broad reach to the general public, families and schools visiting beaches. During the final year of our center, we focused on migrating our successful events to partners who would improve and continue them. The Seattle Aquarium has taken on our highly successful "Lightning Talks" series, which features 10 marine scientists, educators, and science communicators in fast-paced five-minute talks on the topic of their expertise. Talks are followed by a networking reception after where the audience can ask questions of the speakers and engage in discussions inspired by their presentations. The event has drawn hundreds of participants and is a popular component of the Aquarium’s Science Discovery Weekend. Our Boat-based Educators Workshops was assumed by Washington Sea Grant. This program aimed to bring marine scientists interested in citizen science together with educators who use boats and beach visits as their platform. The workshops have led to the development of new collaborations and have strengthened citizen science in the Puget Sound region. Our flagship citizen science effort SoundCitizen continues at the University of Washington Tacoma campus, and the program now focuses almost exclusively on interacting with youth from underserved communities. Project COOL, our after school program for underserved middle school youth, completed its fifth year (and has one additional year of NSF funding remaining). Our partner the Ocean Inquiry Project hosted more than a dozen research cruises in 2013-2014, bringing youth to sea, often for the first time and our education research team continued its efforts by publishing research on how people learn about the ocean and the environment.
