Preparing educators with practical science: Ocean observing in the classroom

Over the past two years, the UNH Coastal Observing Center and the Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System (GoMOOS) have co-sponsored two week-long teacher workshops that offer curriculum content and hands-on experience in using ocean observation data as a successful teaching tool in the classroom. Teachers ranging from grammar school to high school levels worked to create practical lessons that incorporate ocean observing data into their current classroom settings and are using it today. This paper will explain how the UNH/GOMOOS summer Educator Institutes have been run, what teachers have been learning in these workshops, and how they planned and started using ocean observing data in their classrooms.