High school students study marine creatures at a COSEE-OS workshop

COSEE-OS has established agreements with three school districts in inland Maine: Bangor School Department, Alternative Organizational Structure 92 in Waterville, and Maine School Administrative District #11 in Gardiner. Each School District Collaboration (SDC) has staff members who had previously interacted with COSEE-OS (e.g., professional development workshops) and approached us about helping them integrate ocean topics into their districts.

One of COSEE-OS' goals in the SDC partnership is to "follow educators into the classroom" to evalute the efficacy of providing ocean-climate content to inland audiences through traditional Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) courses. COSEE-OS also works with the SDCs to expose more students to ocean science.

Planned and ongoing programs with the SDCs include:

• Bringing inquiry-based, oceanography labs into Bangor middle schools.
• Discussions between scientists and teachers on how to integrate ocean science principles into Maine schools.
• Showcasing COSEE-OS tools to high school students.
• The Curriculum Development Workshop at Colby College.
• Student participation at the Graduate Student/Faculty Collaborative Workshop.
• A pilot project using ocean observing data in selected courses through the involvement of collaborating ocean data providers such as NERACOOS.
• The Keller BLOOM Program at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences.
• Riding the Waves, a National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP) mini grant.
• The Young Environmental Leaders Program at Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory.