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Education and Diversity

As we investigate one of Earth’s largest carbon fluxes, we are working to engage students of all ages in understanding the functioning of the ocean ecosystem.  Each of our initiatives furthers goals for recruitment, retention, and inclusion of diverse perspectives and backgrounds in the ocean sciences by leveraging the strengths within C-CoMP science and expertise of senior education personnel.

Education Initiatives

Outreach and education activities (blue circles) offer multiple pathways to ocean literacy and engagement in ocean science research to broaden participation in the ocean science workforce. These pathways include training teachers and engaging with classrooms and museums for K-12 students, creating and partnering with undergraduate professors to teach course-based research experiences (CUREs), creating Vertically Integrated Projects (VIPs) to enable cross-year research teams, participating in internship programs, and recruiting Bridge-to-Ph.D. students as well as Ph.D. students and Post-docs. These outreach and education activities align with C-CoMP emerging tools and technologies at appropriate levels of complexity (green squares and dotted arrows with example activities in the figure below). C-CoMP outreach and education initiatives focus interventions on known “exit points” by offering content and structures for retaining learners and providing entry points for new learners. The effectiveness of these initiatives will be studied through educational research (Dolan, O’Dwyer) and successful activities exported to the broader STEM education community. Figure credit: C-CoMP Team.

Outreach and education activities (blue circles) offer multiple pathways to ocean literacy and engagement in ocean science research to broaden participation in the ocean science workforce. These pathways include training teachers and engaging with classrooms and museums for K-12 students, creating and partnering with undergraduate professors to teach course-based research experiences (CUREs), creating Vertically Integrated Projects (VIPs) to enable cross-year research teams, participating in internship programs, and recruiting Bridge-to-Ph.D. students as well as Ph.D. students and Post-docs. These outreach and education activities align with C-CoMP emerging tools and technologies at appropriate levels of complexity (green squares and dotted arrows with example activities). C-CoMP outreach and education initiatives focus interventions on known “exit points” by offering content and structures for retaining learners and providing entry points for new learners. The effectiveness of these initiatives will be studied through educational research (Dolan, O’Dwyer) and successful activities exported to the broader STEM education community. Figure credit: C-CoMP Team.