COSEE - Coastal Trends Science-Educator Program---Enhancing the Understanding of Dynamic Coastal Trends

COSEE - Coastal Trends Science-Educator program, a part of the Center for Ocean Science Education Excellence (COSEE), is a collaborative team consisting of a scientist, a graduate student, a teacher and a Hampton University undergraduate student. The goal of this program is to increase literacy in ocean science by concentrating on the understanding of coastal trends. Over the course of a summer, the Science-Educator team members work together to conduct research on a coastal trend. The results they collect are then used to create a web-based module with high-quality educational materials that address National Science Education Standards and Ocean Literacy Essential Principles. Each participant has a different role in this team: Scientists and graduate students lead the research; Teachers lead communication skills and create classroom activities based on their research; Graduate students lead communicating science development (video clips, pod casts, web postings, animations of computer simulations); and Undergraduate students lead public display development. The 4 major components of the module are: Learn About, Trends, Current Research and the 5'E Lesson Plans. Another component of the Science-Educator team is the partnership between COSEE Coastal Trends, Hampton University and the Virginia Aquarium to carry out the Mentoring Young Scientist (MYS) and Communicating Ocean Science to Informal Audiences (COSIA) programs. MYS is a year long enrichment program that connects middle school students, who are under served, in science activities that are formatted to education standards. The COSIA course is where they will learn how to develop outreach activities and programs at the VA Aquarium that will display their Coastal Trend project results to a wide general audience.