Informal educators, scientists, science education faculty, and science institutions worked with the Lincoln County (Oregon) School District to develop and implement professional development for K-12 teachers around ocean literacy and aquatic & marine science. Oregon Coast Aquatic and Marine science Partnership (OCAMP) ran from 2009-2012 and offered teachers scientific presentations on topics ranging from estuaries to climate change. Project teachers were also given opportunities to attend and present at national conferences, learn about different aquatic & marine curriculum and materials (including lab materials) available, work in a professional learning community where they had to complete an action research project, and so much more.
For this post, however, I want to focus on lesson plans written by project teachers. Each OCAMP teacher was encouraged to submit an original lesson plan or a lesson plan that used a pre-existing material either in a new way or over a series of days. The lesson plans cover a broad range of topics, from plankton to tsunamis. There is now a wonderful selection of teacher-written (and approved!) lesson plans available on the OCAMP website, http://ocampmsp.webs.com, under the tab OCAMP Developed Lessons. The lesson plans have been organized by Ocean Literacy Principle and by grade level. Hopefully these lesson plans (and other available information) are helpful to both formal and informal educators.