Category Archives: marine education

Oregon Sea Grant partners in new regional STEM Hub grant

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Youngsters explore wave energy lab at HMSCNEWPORT – Oregon Sea Grant is partnering with the Lincoln County School District to create a new Oregon Coast Regional STEM Hub to serve coastal communities from Astoria to Coos Bay.

The effort, under a $644,000 grant from the Oregon Department of Education, will be based at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center under the guidance of Sea Grant’s marine education team. The goal is to help equip teachers to better provide STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education to k-12 students.

The grant is to the Lincoln County School District, which is partnering with Sea Grant, Tillamook School District and the Oregon Coast Aquarium. The new STEM Hub is one of six across Oregon intended to foster 21st Century career skills, particularly for historically under-served student populations. The new Oregon Coast Regional STEM Hub will help provide coastal schools and educators with the tools and support necessary to deliver world-class STEM instruction to rural students.

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Fellowship opportunities in the new year

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Check out several new fellowship opportunities, including the newly announced 2015 Knauss Fellowship:  http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/education/fellowships

Current opportunities

Want to find out more what it’s like to be an Oregon Sea Grant Scholar? 

Investigating why kids lose interest in science, math

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PORTLAND (StreetRoots News) – Nobody’s quite sure why, but toward the end of middle school students lose interest in science and math. Researchers at one Portland school want to learn why. By solving the mystery, they hope to reverse the trend.

Northeast Portland’s culturally diverse, working-class Parkrose Middle School is the subject of an investigation by Oregon State University researchers hoping to discover why science, technology, engineering, and math, or STEM, no longer appeals to many kids once they reach the eighth grade.

STEM has become a watchword for educators wanting a trained workforce capable of flourishing in an increasingly science-and-technology-driven global economy. Others say STEM is essential to create an informed citizenry able to weigh in on issues from climate change to bioengineering.

However, whereas much of STEM education is currently dominated by in-school curriculum changes, the OSU Parkrose project is traveling a different path.

“The data says if they [students] have interests and are engaged, good things will happen,” says OSU professor John Falk.

Falk heads OSU’s Center for Research on Lifelong STEM Learning. He’s organizing the Parkrose project and its small team with his wife, OSU professor Lynn Dierking.

Both are also associated with Oregon Sea Grant’s program in Free-Choice Learning – operated out of the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport – which seeks to systematically study how people learn about science in “free-choice” settings such as aquariums and musems, where they can follow their own interests, set their own pace and explore at will. …

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(This story was written by Nathan Gilles, a Portland writer and former Sea Grant Communications intern)

Tsunami debris curriculum teaches about marine invaders

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Workers clean live species from Japanese dock washed up on Agate Beach, 2012A new curriculum from Oregon Sea Grant uses lessons from the 2011 Japanese tsunami – and subsequent arrival of large docks and other artifacts of the disaster on US shores – to teach about science, engineering – and the risks posed by foreign species hitching a ride on floating debris.

Developed by Sea Grant’s Watershed and Invasive Species Education (WISE) program, the curriculum was tested at several workshops this year where teachers had a chance to experience activities focused on getting students and teachers excited about STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) learning. Along with teaching about marine invaders, the activities looked at the power of tsunami waves, and how engineering can make shorefront communities more resilient to such disasters.

The entire curriculum is available, free, from Oregon Sea Grant’s Website.

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Two new curricula available from Oregon Sea Grant

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Tsunami evacuation signOregon Sea Grant has recently published two new curricula. Both are available online.

Tsunami STEM Curriculum–uses Ocean Science Systems as pathways to stimulate STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) learning to guide students in decision making. Students immerse into STEM through understanding the causes and consequences of a natural disaster such as a tsunami or bioinvasion, learn about their risks, and explore choices and consequences of responses to and preparation for tsunami hazards. http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/sgpubs/e-13-003

You’re Excluded! An Activity Exploring Technology Changes in the Trawl Industry–includes objectives, method, materials needed, information on trawl fishing, pictures of nets, procedures, activity options, and discussion questions. It also includes instructions on incorporating engineering designs standards for kindergarten through high school. http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/sgpubs/e-13-002-trawl-industry-curriculum

Oregon Sea Grant wins APEX 2013 Award of Excellence

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2013_winnerOregon Sea Grant has been awarded the APEX 2013 Award of Excellence in the “One-of-a-Kind Education & Training Publications” category for its work on The Oregon Coast Quests Book, 2013-14.

APEX 2013, the 25th Annual Awards for Publication Excellence, is an international competition that recognizes outstanding publications from newsletters and magazines to annual reports, brochures, and websites.

According to the APEX 2013 judges, “The awards were based on excellence in graphic design, quality of editorial content, and the success of the entry in conveying the message and achieving overall communications effectiveness.” This year’s competition was “exceptionally intense,” drawing 2,400 entries in 12 major categories.

E-13-001 Quests book 2013-14 250Quests are fun and educational clue-directed hunts that encourage exploration of natural areas. In this self-guided activity, Questers follow a map and find a series of clues to reach a hidden box. This edition of the Oregon Coast Quests Book contains 26 Quests in three counties (Lincoln, Coos, and Benton), including six brand-new Quests and one in both English and Spanish.

The Oregon Coast Quests program is coordinated by Oregon Sea Grant Marine Educator Cait Goodwin, who also oversaw production of the book. Oregon Sea Grant Managing Editor Rick Cooper performed the editing and layout.

You can order copies of The Oregon Coast Quests Book here.

Join Oregon Sea Grant at da Vinci Days!

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Join Oregon Sea Grant at da Vinci Days this Saturday and Sunday, July 20-21, on Oregon State University’s lower campus in Corvallis, Oregon. Discover interesting biofacts about the diverse life forms found on our beaches; meet some of our undergraduate Summer Scholars and hear about their projects; find out how invasive species impact our aquatic ecosystems; and learn more about Oregon Sea Grant’s integrated research, education, and public engagement on ocean and coastal issues. There is something for everyone at this family-friendly event!

How to feed a giant Pacific octopus

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Ever wonder how to feed an octopus? Well, now you can find out–by watching How to Feed a Giant Pacific Octopus, a video produced by Oregon Sea Grant for NOAA’s Ocean Today kiosk.

The three-minute video features a very hungry Reuben the Octopus, along with Bill Hanshumaker, Oregon Sea Grant’s marine public education specialist at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon.

How to Feed a Giant Pacific Octopus

Summer issue of Confluence magazine now online

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The summer 2013 issue of Oregon Sea Grant’s magazine, Confluence, is now online at http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/confluenceconfluence-2-1-cover

Articles in this issue, which focuses on aquaculture in Oregon, include “The Whiskey Creek Shellfish Acid Tests,” “Priced out of our own seafood,” and “The traveling ornamental defender.”

Sea Grant seeks renewable energy outreach coordinator, part-time bioscience tech

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NEWPORT  – Oregon Sea Grant is advertising to fill two Newport-based positions: A full-time marine renewable energy outreach and engagement associate, and a part-time bioscience research technician in our aquatic animal health program.

The marine renewable energy position is grant-funded for one year, with a possible extension. It’s intended to fund a community educator to develop and coordinate educational programs related to the field of marine renewable energy, and more specifically, to the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center.

Full details and online application are available at OSU Jobs; the position closes July 6, 2013.

The second positition, a BioScience Research Technician 12, is for approximately 18-19 hours per week, and based at Sea Grant’s Aquatic Animal Health Program at the Hatfield Marine Science Center. The position  assists our program lead/Extension veterionarian and our senior aquarist with animal husbandry, facility operration, and ongoinbg research related to the health management of aquatic animals in captivity, and  the use of aquatic animals in public engagement and education. Full details and online application are available at OSU Jobs. This position closes June 25, 2013.