"Every one of my grad students has been involved with COSEE, and at every level." |
Dr. Peggy Fong's relationship with
COSEE West has been
one of evolution, moving from "just showing up and giving lectures" to being fully involved as a Co-PI.
COSEE West has also evolved, becoming more focused on developing national and international models of
outreach through technology. "We’re trying to institutionalize some of the things we're doing", says
Peggy, "making them widely applicable and widely available."
COSEE West also gave Peggy the support to scale up the Marine Biology Quarter (MBQ) class that she
teaches, and to share the students' experience with a wider group of people through online workshops.
Over the last three years, together with the
College of Exploration,
COSEE West has developed online workshops for K-12 teachers, with a goal of exposing them to cutting
edge research. Peggy has taught two of these workshops, which were developed in association with the
undergraduate MBQ classes. (Peggy's grad students also helped in the workshop development and
presentation.) Lectures were filmed and posted online for teachers and their students, who were also
involved directly in the research experiences of the MBQ undergraduates through students' blogs.
The second workshop reached over 240 people from around the world, including Korea, Indonesia, South
Africa, and India. Through the blogs, participants could follow students' research efforts, asking
questions and interacting as the research progressed. "The online workshops raise people's awareness
of the subject matter," says Peggy. "Specifically, of coral reef ecology and how human impacts are
affecting the sustainability of these systems." Future plans include expanding the use of these online
workshops throughout the California system of state schools and community colleges.
