NOAA's Education Program Review and Critique (2010) / Chapter Skim
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4 Overview and Critique of NOAA's Education Programs
4 Overview and Critique of NOAA's Education Programs
Pages 75-110
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From page 75... ...
Also, education programs are being carried out at multiple levels: that is, education is supported by line office managers, as well as by offices within the line offices, such as the National Sea Grant College Program Office and the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. The majority of NOAA staff, offices, and sites are located in a coastal region (see Figure 4.1)
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From page 76... ...
Hollings Scholarship Office of Education Program
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From page 77... ...
SOURCE: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Figure 4-1 R01712
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From page 78... ...
There is large variation in the number of initiatives and amount of funding across programs. For example, both the National Sea Grant College Program and the National Marine Fisheries Service conduct various types of education activities and have multiple local sites.
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From page 79... ...
TABLE 4.2 Education Program Activities Grants for NOAA Teacher Fellowships Informal External On-Site Web-Based Locally- Curriculum Professional for Higher Education Program Education Education Education Based Development Development Education Outreach ü ü ü ü B-WET ü ü ü ü ü ü Coral Reef Conservation ü ü ü Storm/Tsunami Ready Estuary Research ü ü ü ü ü ü ü Reserves ü ü ü ü ü ü ü Fisheries Service ü ü ü ü ü ü Marine Sanctuaries Environmental Literacy ü ü ü ü Grants ü ü ü ü JASON ü ü ü ü ü Ocean Explorer ü Teacher at Sea/in Air ü ü ü ü ü ü Cooperative Institutes ü ü ü ü Educational Partnerships ü Hollings ü Foster ü ü ü ü ü ü ü Sea Grant ü ü ü ü ü Climate Change Program ü ü Ocean Hall ü ü ü National Weather Service ü ü ü National Ocean Service NOTE: A circle in the box indicates that the program has at least one initiative in an area.
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From page 80... ...
B-WET is an Office of Education program that has been administered by regional program offices (e.g., the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office, and the Pacific Services Center) since 2002.
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From page 81... ...
There have been several local CRCP outreach activities, including media outreach, environmental expos, and other communication efforts. CRCP Quick Facts Scientific Focus -- Coral reef ecosystems and conservation Audience -- General public, K-12 educators Format -- Varied, grants for local initiatives, some curriculum development and teacher professional development Education Budget -- $.9M in FY2007 Supporting Offices -- Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Environmental Satellite, Data, & Information Services, National Ocean Service Impact: The committee did not have access to assessments of local CRCP education initiatives, and no national education products have been evaluated.
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From page 82... ...
The festival includes a teacher training workshop as well as hands-on activities run by teachers and scientists on weather and climate topics, drawing approximately 3,000 visitors per year. NWS has supported formal education activities, such as the creation of the Xtreme Weather CD.
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From page 83... ...
, national guidance, and technical assistance. Each reserve is managed on a NERRS Quick Facts Scientific Focus -- Estuary ecosystems and conservation Audience -- Primarily K-12 students and teachers Format -- Varied, many informal programs plus some curriculum, professional development, and graduate fellowships Education Budget -- $1.1M in FY2007 Line Office -- National Ocean Service
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From page 84... ...
Other initiatives are locally based and include professional teacher training programs, K-12 student programs, and community outreach and educational programs. Impact: A 2003 review of NERRS education found that there had been little formal evaluation of the K-12 and teacher professional development programs and that local reserves have focused their evaluations on the number of people participating rather than changes in their knowledge, intentions, or actions (Pandion Systems, 2003)
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From page 85... ...
Existing evaluations, however, are very positive. Several teacher professional development ONMS Quick Facts Scientific Focus -- Marine sanctuary ecology and conservation Audience -- K-12 students and teachers, general public Format -- Varied, informal and formal Education Budget -- $2M in FY2007 Line Office -- National Ocean Service
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From page 86... ...
Teachers ranked the workshops as among the best they had attended, stating that they were more likely to teach ocean science after attending. The Hawaii Field Study was successful in promoting teaching and behavioral changes among participants (Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, 2005b)
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From page 87... ...
Nationwide Curriculum Development or Teacher Professional Development Programs Environmental Literacy Grants Environmental Literacy Grants (ELG) from the Office of Education provide funding for K-12 environmental literacy education initiatives, both formal and informal.
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From page 88... ...
NOAA has invested money primarily through the Environmental Literacy Grants program to expand the use of SOS to 28 museums and science centers. SOS is used in a wide variety of exhibit formats.
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From page 89... ...
In partnership with the National Ocean Service, OER directs and maintains the official website for these explorations, which serves as a public archive of the exploration program, chronicling many of the missions with detailed daily logs, background essays, multimedia offerings, and over 130 hands-on lesson plans and a curriculum based on the explorations. In addition, OER supports the NOAA ship Okeanos Explorer, which travels around the globe to map the seafloor and characterize largely unknown areas of the ocean, supporting education activities through use of real-time broadband satellite communications to connect the ship and its discoveries live with audiences ashore.
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From page 90... ...
Participants also indicated increased enthusiasm for teaching ocean science. Scientists who participated in Ocean Exploration signature expeditions and teacher professional development institutes were also positive about their experience (Lovelace, 2006)
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From page 91... ...
Collecting the lesson plans and making them available to the wider public might increase the reach and scope of the program without affecting the impact of the program on the participating teachers. Teacher at Sea Quick Facts Scientific Focus -- Ocean science Audience -- K-12 and undergraduate teachers Format -- Teacher professional development Education Budget -- $.2M in FY2007 Line Office -- National Marine Fisheries Service
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From page 92... ...
MERITO is an emerging multicultural education and outreach initiative aiming to build and engage a conscious and cul turally inclusive constituency for ocean protection nationwide. Currently it operates at Monterey Bay and Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuaries, offering adult Programs Primarily Focused on Higher Education Educational Partnership Program The Educational Partnership Program (EPP)
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From page 93... ...
The University of Southern California Sea Grant Program runs a summer science program for middle school girls, which aims to provide students with an introduc tion to oceanography through a series of hands-on experiences and scientific simulations. It demonstrates the effect that humans have on a delicate ecosystem through the study of marine biology and oceanography.
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From page 94... ...
The data received by the committee do not show number of degrees earned in various subdisciplines of ocean sciences or atmospheric sciences or in other specific subdisciplines related to NOAA's mission. Overall, the evaluations found that the Cooperative Science Centers had made progress toward achieving their goals.
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From page 95... ...
In 2007, there have been 2,726 K-12 teachers and 1,516 informal educators involved in Sea Grant professional development programs through the National Sea Grant Educators Network. During that year the network funded 1,793 camps, programs, activities, and clubs involving 153,146 children and families to improve environmental literacy, and network educators taught 1,446 class field trips involving 139,259 students.
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From page 96... ...
Typical Sea Grant curricular materials offer hands-on science lessons, often including new technologies that incorporate real-time data obtained from satellites and offshore monitoring instruments. Sea Grant offers many online resources to students and educators via the Bridge Ocean Sciences Education Teacher Resource Center.4 Impact: The Sea Grant review process provides periodic program assessments of each Sea Grant college, which include a review of education activities.
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From page 97... ...
CI Quick Facts Scientific Focus -- All NOAA critical disciplines Audience -- Mainly undergraduate and graduate students, some K-12 and general public programs Format -- Competitive grants to universities Education Budget -- Not available Line Offices -- National Environmental Satellite, Data, & Information Services; National Marine Fisheries Service; Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research
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From page 98... ...
Nancy Foster Scholarship Program, authorized in the 2000 reauthorization of the National Marine Sanctuaries Act, recognizes outstanding scholarship and encourages independent graduate-level research --
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From page 99... ...
It seeks to engage many segments of society, including policy makers, scientists, educators, and the public, to improve climate literacy. CCEP and its many partner agencies and organizations developed the Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Science framework to guide the development of formal and informal climate science education curricula and supporting educational professional development.
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From page 100... ...
Centers for Ocean Science Education Excellence (COSEE) network.
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From page 101... ...
The impact of the majority of programs is unknown due to the lack of reliable evaluation data. For programs for which reliable evaluation data of specific projects exist -- such as the Educational Partnership Program, the National Estuarine Research Reserve System, B-WET, Environmental Literacy Grants, and the National Sea Grant Program -- the results have been positive.
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From page 102... ...
Rarely did the instructional activities reviewed connect to big ideas in science or engineering or essential principles described in the oceanic, earth, climate, or atmospheric science literacy documents. For example, the Ocean Explorer instructional activity The Sea with No Shores is focused on the Sargasso Sea and has the following stated learning objectives: • Students will be able to infer why the brown alga, Sargassum, is likely to be home to many marine organisms.
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From page 103... ...
Connecting science education activities to core scientific concepts is key because that allows for instructional sequences that build students' understanding in a progressively complex fashion, enabling creative links to be made between disciplines (National Research Council, 1999, 2007)
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From page 104... ...
The National Ocean Service website has the most materials and is also the easiest to navigate. Seeking guidance from website development experts inside and outside NOAA could greatly improve the accessibility and appeal of the agency's education websites.
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From page 105... ...
the key role that the agency plays in the advancement and dissemination of NOAA-related sciences, and (2) the relatively small size of NOAA education programs compared with the needs for science education in the nation.
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From page 106... ...
For example, workforce development programs have large budgets compared with literacy programs. NOAA provides partial funding to many of the external programs it supports, and many of these programs also receive support
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From page 107... ...
Balancing Oceanic, Atmospheric, and Climate Topics As Figure 4.2 shows, there is currently a fairly large focus on ocean topics compared with atmospheric and climate topics. This is partly a consequence of the historical roots of NOAA education, with ocean-based programs, such as Sea Grant, NERRS, and the National Marine Sanctuaries, having clear mandates to engage in educational activities from their inception.
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From page 108... ...
NOAA must be strategic in how and when to develop its education programs using intra-agency expertise versus supporting outside education programs whose developers may have more expertise in education and program design. Encouraging Stewardship and Teaching Scientific Concepts The environmental literacy goal in NOAA's strategic education plan contains a tension that is not explicitly addressed.
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From page 109... ...
Informal education does not mean that schools are ignored. Field trips and teacher professional development programs that occur in informal settings have clear connections to formal education institutions, educators, and students.
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From page 110... ...
Some efforts in this area, such as the Multicultural Education for Resource Issues Threatening Oceans program of the National Marine Sanctuaries, are promising, but too often broadening participation is not a key concern of the programs because of the self-selected nature of their audience. The vast majority of programs serve individuals who are already interested in the science related to NOAA's mission or schools that have the resources to support travel to NOAA education activities.
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