COSEE NETWORK NEWS 2010
November 2010
 In This Issue CNN Vol. 3 No. 11 | November 2010 
Focus On...COSEE Alaska Subscribe
New on COSEE.net
Network Topics
Working Group Updates
CCO Update
COSEE at Conferences
Center News
COSEE Network Calendar
Resources
Announcements
Publications
COSEE Centers and Council Representatives
Focus On...COSEE Alaska
 
COSEE workshop participants dissect salmon
 
What's new at COSEE Alaska? Visit the November Center of the Month and find out!
 New on COSEE.net
This month the Web Working Group and Raytheon Web Solutions rolled out the new Resources functionality on COSEE.net and the Center web sites. Resources can now be posted individually and therefore linked from other pages or posted on Center Feature Rotators. The new format allows a shortened snippet of information on the main Resources page, thereby decreasing user scrolling. Also new: a more robust search and sort functionality.
 Network Topics
New Centers The COSEE Network welcomes three new COSEE Centers:
  • COSEE Florida, based at Indian River State College (IRSC) in collaboration with the Smithsonian Marine Station, Florida Institute of Technology, and the Ocean Research and Conservation Association (ORCA), PI Dr. Edwin R. Massey, IRSC President
  • COSEE Ocean Communities in Education And social Networks (COSEE OCEAN), a collaboration between the University of Massachusetts Boston, the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), the New York Hall of Science, and Boston Public Schools, PI Dr. Bob Chen of UMass Boston, and
  • COSEE Technology and Engineering for Knowledge (COSEE TEK), a collaboration between the University of Connecticut (UConn) Northeast Underwater Research Technology and Education Center (NURTEC), Connecticut Sea Grant, Project Oceanology, and Mystic Aquarium, PI Dr. Ivar Babb of the University of Connecticut. Other COSEE TEK partners include the American School for the Deaf, the National Association of Black Scuba Divers, UConn School of Engineering, and the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation.
Look for more details about these new Centers in the December issue of COSEE Network News.

Community Meeting The COSEE Network hosted a Community Meeting to Envision the Next Decade, November 3-4, 2010, in Washington, DC. Watch this space for a full report coming soon.

Twitter button
Many virtual participants followed the meeting on COSEE Twitter.
 Working Group Updates
Scott Glenn
Scientist Engagement Working Group The Scientist Engagement Working Group (SEW-G) continues to make progress on case studies. Dr. Rick Keil’s case study (COSEE OLC, University of Washington) will be entering the approval process shortly. Dr. Scott Glenn’s case study (COSEE NOW, Rutgers University) has begun the review process. The production team interviewed Dr. Adina Paytan (COSEE California, University of California, Santa Barbara) in October and is preparing to begin an assessment of the project with Dr. Pam Castori of Inverness Research. Questions and comments about SEW-G and the case study project are welcome. Contact SEW-G Chair Jessie Kastler.

ENTS Sub-Group The next Excellence in Networking Tools Sub-Group (ENTs) Network-wide training webinar, scheduled for Friday, November 19 at 3:00 PM EST, will focus on evaluation tools. Several COSEE Centers that have successfully used evaluation tools will make brief presentations on specific tools and their applications. Watch for a Network-wide survey on future webinar topics, coming soon. ENTs now has a blog presence! Wiggio was the subject of first ENTs blog entry. Submissions for the Tools That Work collection are always welcome. For more information contact ENTs co-chairs Catherine Cramer and Carla Companion.

Screenshot of the COSEE Ocean Systems home page
Web Working Group The WWG continues to work on the development of About Us pages for use by COSEE partners, working groups, and administrative staff. When completed, these entities will be able to post news, events, resources, About Us text, and blogs on COSEE.net, similar to the About Us pages published by the Centers. For more information, contact Annette deCharon, WWG Chair.
  CCO Update
Howard Walters
TRE Conference keynote speaker Howard Walters. Photo: Ashland University
The COSEE CCO co-sponsored the recent NOAA Teacher Research Experience (TRE) Conference held October 21-24, 2010 in Washington, DC. Over 130 teachers, scientists, and project administrators participated in the conference, which highlighted project evaluation, sustainability, and classroom transfer. Howard Walters (COSEE Great Lakes) was a conference keynote speaker and Laura Murray (COSEE Coastal Trends) presented a poster on her Center's Scientist/Teacher Partnership Program. The conference was a follow-up to a previous TRE conference conducted by COSEE Executive Director Gail Scowcroft, and she served on NOAA's Conference Advisory Council for this one.

On October 20, 2010 Gail Scowcroft participated in the Ocean Sciences Education Retreat held by the Consortium of Ocean Leadership in Washington, DC. This bi-annual retreat is attended by deans and other administrators from the Joint Oceanographic Institutions (JOI). Gail was able to make a presentation on the National COSEE Network and highlight Centers' activities that reach underserved populations. She will be serving on a JOI working group that will plan a future workshop for administrators and faculty who are serving undergraduate students at minority institutions. This new working group will also prepare marketing materials for engaging students at minority institutions in ocean sciences REUs and graduate programs.

The COSEE Council conducted their most recent meeting on November 1-2 in Washington, DC. A full set of reports and minutes will be posted to the CFM.
 COSEE at Conferences
International Marine Conservation Congress COSEE Alaska partner Ian Dutton, President of the Alaska Sea Life Center, has had a workshop on citizen science accepted for the second International Marine Conservation Congress to be held in Victoria, B.C. May 14-18, 2011, Learning from Citizen Science in Support of Marine Conservation. This would be a great opportunity to showcase COSEE-related citizen science programs. Abstracts are due before December 1. You can find submission details here and conference details here.

AGU Fall Meeting 2010 (December 13 – 17, 2010, San Francisco, CA) If you are attending the AGU Fall Meeting, please consider attending the COSEE themed sessions.

COSEE booth
ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting (February 13 – 18, 2011, San Juan, Puerto Rico) COSEE is participating in two sessions:
  • S26: Improved Broader Impacts = Enhanced Scientific Impact (for professional scientist efforts)
  • S54: Student Engagement in Education and Public Outreach (for undergraduate/graduate student efforts)
Click here for session descriptions.
 Center News
COSEE Alaska is the November Center of the Month.

COSEE California has recently had two articles published:
  • Halversen, C. & Tran, L.U., Communicating Ocean Sciences to Informal Audiences: A scientist-educator partnership to prepare the next generation of scientists. The New Educator, 6:265–279, 2010. This article is an invited paper for a special issue, Science Teachers Educated in Partnerships. The article reports on the successes, challenges, and impacts of creating partnerships between scientists and educators as a result of the Communicating Ocean Sciences courses.
  • Tran, L.U. & Halversen, C., Communicating Ocean Sciences: Partnerships to Prepare Young Scientists as Communicators. ASTC Dimensions, Nov/Dec 2010. This article describes the Communicating Ocean Sciences courses in response to a call from the editor for contributions about how science centers can foster positive interactions, trust, and good communication between scientists and the public.
COSEE NOW slideshow image
COSEE Networked Ocean World offers Antarctica melting: A Story in 4 Acts , a four-part audio slideshow series with an accompanying lesson plan on the role that global climate change has had in transforming the Antarctic ecosystem, as seen through the eyes of three scientists.

COSEE Coastal Trends The Pacific Island Network (PACN) Inventory & Monitoring Program has teamed up with Pacific island national parks, the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, and COSEE Coastal Trends to create an interactive, classroom and web-based education module that highlights coral reefs and issues such as climate change in four national parks.

COSEE Great Lakes announces a new website, Teaching with Great Lakes Data, making it easy to incorporate real scientific data into the classroom. Find out more here.

Aerosols
COSEE Ocean Systems is offering ROLE Model webinars on the carbon cycle, ocean technologies, aerosols, coastal pollutants, climate change models and more. Held every other Wednesday and open to all – and FREE! Details on all upcoming webinars are available here. NEOSEC, a COSEE OS partner, just held its bi-annual Ocean Literacy Summit at the University of New Hampshire. Over 150 scientists, educators, facilitators, policymakers and communicators gathered for a full day of hands-on workshops and panels, capped off by a stunning presentation by Dr. Sylvia Earle. Look for details coming soon in NEwswave.

COSEE SouthEast The newest Creature Feature focuses on Cold Water Corals.
 COSEE Network Calendar
For the up-to-the-minute list of upcoming COSEE events, visit the COSEE.net Events page.
 Resources
Hurricanes: Science and Society The University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography (URI/GSO) has launched one of the most comprehensive Internet resources on hurricanes, Hurricanes: Science and Society. The HSS website and its associated educational resources provide information on the science of hurricanes, methods of observing hurricanes, modeling and forecasting of hurricanes, how hurricanes impact society, and how people and communities can prepare for and mitigate the impacts of hurricanes. In addition to in-depth science content, the website includes educational resources, case studies, and a historical storm interactive. Information is tailored for specific audiences, including middle school through undergraduate educators and students, the general public, and the media. All content has undergone rigorous peer review by an esteemed panel of hurricane experts. The development of the HSS website was led by GSO’s Gail Scowcroft and Isaac Ginis and designed in coordination with Raytheon Web Solutions. The website has been made possible by a grant from the Informal Science Education Program of the National Science Foundation.

ITEST Program Findings Webinar Archive During this webinar on Youth Motivation, Interest, and Identity as it Relates to STEM Career Development participants heard from ITEST projects working across the U.S. to learn specific frameworks for fostering and assessing youth motivation and STEM career interest. This webinar discussed recent developments in theory and measurement of youth interest in STEM careers. The purpose of the webinar was to share Principal Investigator knowledge of measurement techniques, analysis problems, and theories of youth motivation. The participants discussed active strategies used in current ITEST projects seeking to increase motivation and STEM career development. View the webinar archive.

New NOAA Education Website To better connect educators and students who are interested in NOAA’s education and science resources, NOAA has just completed a major update of the agency’s primary education resource portal. This website serves as a portal to lesson plans, educational multi-media, data sources, career profiles, and other education content from across the agency. Visit.

ScienceEducation.gov is a portal for federal agency resources on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education content. The website includes lesson plans, curricula, classroom activities, professional development, and more. Searches can be filtered by resource type, grade level, and agency. This is a newly released website and changes and additions will continue to be made.
 Announcements
NOSB logo
NOSB Academic Competition and Video Contest The 2011 Living on the Ocean Planet Video Contest is open to ANY high school student who wishes to participate. They do not have to participate in the NOSB academic competition to submit a video for the video contest. Application deadline is January 28, 2011.

National Ocean Council The Inaugural meeting of the National Ocean Council recently took place at the White House. For information on outcomes and next steps visit here.

Public Participation in Scientific Research Public participation in scientific research (PPSR) refers to initiatives in which the public is involved in one or more phases of scientific research - from defining questions to using results - and encompasses citizen science, participatory monitoring, community science, and a variety of other endeavors and approaches. Click here for more information, to give input via a survey, and/or to apply to take part in a workshop on April 7 - 8, 2011 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City to develop guidelines for best practices and identify outstanding questions for advancing conservation science and practice through PPSR. The survey/application is open through November 30, 2010.
 Publications
Ocean Acidification Document The Ocean Acidification Reference User Group (RUG) has released a new document about ocean acidification, Ocean acidification: Questions answered, that is targeted to non-specialists. It provides more detailed information about some of the more technical questions the public is asking about ocean acidification. This new document is available as a PDF.

National Research Council Climate Change Video The National Research Council has released a video based on the report Advancing the Science of Climate Change, one of four panel reports from the America's Climate Choices project. The report maps out the realm of accumulated knowledge regarding climate change and urges that research on climate change enter a new era focused on the needs of decision makers. In this video, the leaders of the panel, Dr. Pamela Matson and Dr. Thomas Dietz, describe the panel's key findings and the lines of evidence that brought them to those conclusions. The video is available here.
Contribute to CNN! Send news and announcements of interest to the COSEE Network community to the editor, Catherine Cramer.

 COSEE Centers and Council Representatives
COSEE Alaska (Nora Deans, North Pacific Research Board)
COSEE California (Craig Strang, UC Berkeley)
COSEE Central Gulf of Mexico (Sharon Walker, Institute for Marine Mammal Studies)
COSEE Coastal Trends (Laura Murray, U of Maryland Center for Environmental Science)
COSEE Florida (Edwin Massey, Indian River State College)
COSEE Great Lakes (Rosanne Fortner, Ohio State University)
COSEE Networked Ocean World World (Janice McDonnell, Rutgers University)
COSEE New England (Billy Spitzer, New England Aquarium)
COSEE OCEAN (Bob Chen, University of Massachusetts)
COSEE Ocean Learning Communities (Phil Bell, University of Washington)
COSEE Ocean Systems (Annette deCharon, Darling Marine Center, University of Maine)
COSEE Pacific Partnerships (Jan Hodder, Oregon Institute of Marine Biology)
COSEE SouthEast (Lundie Spence, South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium)
COSEE TEK (Ivar Babb, University of Connecticut)
COSEE West (Linda Duguay, University of Southern California)