COSEE NETWORK NEWS 2011
November 2011
 In This Issue CNN Vol. 4 No. 11 | November 2011 
Focus On...COSEE Alaska Subscribe
National COSEE Office
Network Topics
COSEE Online
Working Group Updates
COSEE at Conferences
Center News
COSEE Network Calendar
Announcements
Media Resources
COSEE Centers and Council Representatives
Focus On...COSEE Alaska
 

COSEE Alaska is the November Center of the Month. Find out what’s new here!
 National COSEE Office
Annual Operating Plan The latest draft of the 2012 Annual Operating Plan for the National COSEE Network is posted on the COSEE File Manager in the folder for the Strategic Business Plan Working Group. It is labeled "COSEE_AOP_2012_draft_10.25.11.pdf". This is the draft that was be reviewed at the November Council meeting. Please contact Billy Spitzer with any comments or questions.

Council Meeting The COSEE Council met November 8-9 in Washington DC.
 Network Topics
Network-Wide Collection of Excellent Hands-On Activities COSEE OCEAN is spearheading an effort to produce a "Best of COSEE Hands-on Activities" CD to be handed out to every registrant at the Ocean Sciences Meeting held February 2012 in Salt Lake City. All Centers have been requested to send in their best three hands-on activities for inclusion. The goal of this CD is to put high quality, easily accessible, effective and engaging Hands-On Activities into the hands of scientists, most of whom find themselves in situations where they are teaching or presenting to students, the public, or other non-science audiences and where a Hands-On Activity would be an effective tool to communicate with and engage their audience. Once scientists try one of these activities and trust the set, they are more likely to engage in more Education and Outreach activities and seek help from COSEE. COSEE will also have a booth at the Ocean Science Meeting where anyone in the greater COSEE Network can demonstrate these activities and hand out the CD. For more information contact Bob Chen.
 COSEE Online
New this month on COSEE.net is the first Partners page, for the American Meteorological Society. If you'd like to add a Network partner to this area of the website, please contact Lisa Taylor.
 Working Group Updates
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Isaac Ginis
Scientist Engagement Working Group The case study for Dr. Isaac Ginis (University of Rhode Island, National COSEE Office) is complete and will be posted shortly to the COSEE Scientists Making an Impact website. Work has begun on the case study for Dr. Michael Castellini (University of Alaska, COSEE Alaska). The Production Team is completing interviews for the case study for Dr. Mary Jane Perry (University of Maine, COSEE Ocean Systems). Production Team member Jessie Kastler is offering a workshop at the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation (CERF) meeting - Scientists as communicators and educators – that will refer to sections of the SEWG case studies as examples. Please contact SEW-G Chair Jessie Kastler with questions, suggestions and comments (228-872--4269).

Screenshot of the COSEE TEK home page
Web Working Group The WWG, with Raytheon Web Solutions, has nearly completed new functionality to permit blog commenting and continues to develop capabilities to create photo and video galleries within the Content Management System (CMS). The new website for COSEE SouthEast, the latest Center to join the CMS, is expected to go live this month. For more information, contact Annette deCharon, WWG Chair.

ENTS Sub-Group Wondering how best to get the word out about your Center’s great activities? Looking for a new way to present data in an engaging way? ENTs is here to help! The COSEE Network is invited to join our bi-weekly ENTs calls to ask any and all questions about online tools. For more information, contact one of the ENTs co-chairs Catherine Cramer and Carla Companion.
 COSEE at Conferences
Report: 2012 SACNAS National Conference, San Jose, CA, October 27-30, 2011 Over 3,000 people attended the 2011 SACNAS National Conference in San Jose, California. The conference featured a record number of exhibitors, student presentations, and overall attendees. There were more than 1,200 graduate students and about 1,400 undergraduate students in attendance. For a detailed report, click here.

2012 Ocean Sciences Meeting, Salt Lake City, UT, February 20-24, 2012 The COSEE Network is planning a large presence during the upcoming Ocean Sciences Meeting. The NCO will host a booth in the exhibit area and several Centers are planning to host activities.

COSEE-convened Sessions
  • COSEE: Using Evaluation to Measure the Impacts of Education/Outreach; Patricia Kwon (COSEE West), Andrea Anderson (COSEE OLC), Diana Payne (COSEE TEK), Shawn Rowe (COSEE PP)
  • Using Data from Autonomous Vehicles and Drifters to Support Education and Outreach; Janice McDonnell, Jim Yoder (COSEE NOW)
  • Science Communication Courses: Giving the Next Generation of Scientists a Voice; Craig Strang, Eric Simms (COSEE CA), Janice McDonnell (COSEE NOW)
  • International Education and Outreach Activities; Adrienne Sponberg, Bob Chen, (COSEE OCEAN), Melissa Ryan (COSEE TEK)
  • Improved Broader Impacts = Enhanced Scientific Impacts; Gail Scowcroft (COSEE NCO), Liesl Hotaling (COSEE NOW, NCO)
Other activities in planning stages are a series of luncheons, a pre-conference workshop for early career scientists, and a Meet the Scientists session in which COSEE staff will meet with interested scientists to discuss personalized broader impact plans.

2012 National Science Teachers Association National Conference, Indianapolis, IN March 29 – April 1, 2012
  • Strand One: Mapping Our Way to Success Through the New Core Standards
  • Strand Two: Pathways to a Sustainable Planet
  • Strand Three: Merging Inquiry, Creativity, and Innovation Through STEM
  • Strand Four: Traveling New Instructional Roads Through Technology
Although NSTA has not completed the selection process, the COSEE Network submitted 10 proposals for concurrent sessions and one proposal for a short course. Determination of sessions should be complete Fall 2011.

2013 National Science Teachers Association National Conference, San Antonio, TX, April 11 – 14, 2013
  • Strand 1: Next Generation Assessments: Effectively Measuring Student Learning
  • Strand 2: Next Generation Elementary Science: Building the Foundation
  • Strand 3: Next Generation Special Populations: Improving Science Instruction to Meet the Needs of Diverse Learners
  • Strand 4: Next Generation Technology: Putting the “T” in STEM
Proposals are due April 15, 2012. Please follow this link to submit a proposal.

National Marine Educators Association Conference, Anchorage, Alaska, June 24-28, 2012 Hosted by COSEE Alaska and Northwest Aquatic and Marine Educators (NAME). [Details]
  • Proposal submission: December 1, 2011 - February 17, 2012
  • Advanced registration: January 17 - April 4, 2012
  • Registration begins: April 15, 2012
  • Conference themes: Science and art, science and culture, science and technology, science and education, large marine ecosystems. Special strand on integrating traditional knowledge and marine science education.
Scholarships available for traditional knowledge and broadening audiences.
 Center News
COSEE Alaska is hosting the 2012 National Marine Educators Association Conference, June 24-28, 2012, Anchorage, Alaska. For details visit here.

COSEE California As some of you know, we at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and COSEE CA have been developing the Deep-sea Extreme Environment Pilot (D.E.E.P.) game on the Microsoft Xbox360 platform in an effort to test the validity of popular gaming as a learning/engagement tool in informal settings. We recently entered the game into the 2011 NSF International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge, and have been chosen as one of the top 10 in our category (Interactive Video Games). NSF's panel of judges will now choose winners from this select group of finalists, and we should know the outcome by mid-November. The 2011 winning entries will be published in a February 2012 issue of the journal Science.

This year, for the first time, the public was given a chance to vote in the competition as well. While the voting has ended, you can visit online and see the entries and make comments. You can select 'Interactive Video Games' from the pull-down menu to narrow your search for the D.E.E.P. game entry. You can see a recent trailer for the game here.

COSEE Great Lakes Rosanne Fortner (COSEE Great Lakes PI) has received the highest honor from the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE). The Walter E. Jeske Award recognizes outstanding service to NAAEE and leadership within the profession. Rosanne attended the NAAEE conference in Raleigh, NC, on October 15, 2011, to accept the honor, which was presented by Tom Marcinkowski, the 2010 Jeske winner. Rosanne and previous award recipients are highlighted on the NAAEE website.

Roseanne Fortner receives NAAEE award
 
COSEE OCEAN Bob Chen (COSEE OCEAN) offered a presentation at the NAAEE conference on The New England Ocean Science Education Collaborative: A Sustainable Network.

An effort to collect excellent hands-on activities from across the COSEE Network is being spearheaded by COSEE OCEAN. The activities will be put on a DVD and handed out to all participants at the Ocean Sciences meeting in February.

COSEE Ocean Learning Communities has some disappointing news to report. Due to changes in funding SoundCitizen, a community-based participatory science water sample network in the Puget Sound region that focuses on scientific investigations of the chemical links between urban settings and aquatic systems, will be shutting down as of December 31. SoundCitizen is run through Rick Keil’s lab at the University of Washington and has been a key collaborator with COSEE-OLC for connecting academic ocean science with communities and educators.

Since its initiation in 2008 by undergraduate oceanography students, SoundCitizen has trained 17 undergraduate students in topics ranging from rigorous laboratory methods to best practices in education. Volunteers have collected almost 2500 samples across the Puget Sound region and nearly 10,000 K-12 students and educators have used SoundCitizen data to understand their personal connection to chemicals in Puget Sound, in addition to the 30,000 people who have heard about SoundCitizen research at local events. SoundCitizen will continue to process current and incoming samples until the beginning of December and will be converting their website to be an informational resource for educators and the community.

Bangor High Students sample Frenchman Bay
COSEE Ocean Systems The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory (MDIBL), a COSEE-OS partner, $84,000 to help inland Maine teachers and students understand the role of marine habitats in combating climate change. MDIBL will involve participants in restoration and conservation projects in Frenchman Bay and Hancock County. Dr. Jane Disney, director of MDIBL’s Community Environmental Health Laboratory, will oversee the project. Jane started working with teachers and students from inland schools earlier this year with support from COSEE-OS. Read the Bangor Daily News article here.

COSEE Pacific Partnerships staff Shawn Rowe and Coral Gehrke will run a concept mapping workshop for graduate students attending the Western Society of Naturalists Meeting in Vancouver, WA on November 10 from 6-8:30pm. The workshop will introduce participants to techniques and online tools for identifying and communicating the big ideas behind their work in ways that make it relevant and interesting without over-simplifying it. Participants will identify audiences with whom they would like to communicate their work, map out key components of their work, and develop strategies for communicating with their maps.

COSEE TEK The Teacher Ocean Technology Institute will be held at the University of Connecticut – Avery Point Campus, in Groton, CT on November 11-12, 2011. Teachers and informal educators are invited to this two-day professional development opportunity to learn about a range of ocean technologies from researchers at the University of Connecticut and from their peers who participated in Teacher Technology Experiences (TTE’s) this summer.

COSEE West The free 3-week online workshop Ocean Observing Systems: From Your Eyes to Satellites is underway now through November 18. Five teachers from Colorado attended COSEE West’s Ocean Observing System workshop in August. Read about their experience in the COSEE Teacher Exchange blog.
 COSEE Network Calendar
For the up-to-the-minute list of upcoming COSEE events, visit the COSEE.net Events page.
 Announcements
Candidate Search The National Science Foundation has announced a national search for an Assistant Director for Geosciences (GEO), to be appointed July 1, 2012. Details here.

Informal Science Online Grad Certificate The University of South Florida is offering an online graduate certificate, Informal Science Institutions: Environmental Education. For more information contact Barbara Spector or visit here.

MTS Student Memberships The Teledyne-sponsored Marine Technology Society (MTS) Student Memberships are open. Students that are new to MTS can apply for a free membership by contacting Jake Sobin.

EARTH 2012 Applications are available for the 2012 EARTH workshop, hosted by MBARI and SECOORA, July 8-July 13, 2012 at University of North Carolina, Wilmington. The focus of the 2012 workshop will be on ocean observatories and SouthEast Coastal Research. If you have an interest and would like to be contacted about the 2012 workshop, please send an email to George Matsumoto. A requirement of the application process is to trial an EARTH activity, complete the rubric, and mail the rubric to George. Ten of the twenty participants will be from SECOORA states (North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia); if you are from one of these states, please send your application to Lisa Adams - you can contact Lisa if you have any questions. Applications are due by March 21, 2012 and selections will be made by early April. Learn more about EARTH.
 Media Resources
The Blu is a global mission to create the ocean on the web - an interactive world where every species and habitat is a unique work of art created by digital artists and developers around the world, as a social online experience. To learn more visit 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 (Robin Dublin, COSEE Alaska)
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 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)