{"id":1702,"date":"2010-09-01T10:43:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-01T14:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/?page_id=1702"},"modified":"2024-09-19T14:52:59","modified_gmt":"2024-09-19T18:52:59","slug":"changing-seas-teachers-explore-oceanclimate-change-connection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/changing-seas-teachers-explore-oceanclimate-change-connection\/","title":{"rendered":"Changing Seas: Teachers Explore Ocean\/Climate Change Connection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n
Terri Kirby Hathaway holds up a brown, heart-shaped sea bean as she relates its remarkable journey from a tropical rain forest to a far-away ocean shoreline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The small sea bean or drift seed fell from a tropical vine into a stream or river and was carried downstream to the ocean, explains Hathaway, North Carolina Sea Grant’s marine education specialist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Sea beans can float up to 30 years in the ocean current,” she says. Every so often, small drift seeds wash up on North Carolina shores, after being transported by wind and currents such as the Gulf Stream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The seed’s journey is just one lesson at the Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence SouthEast (COSEE-SE) Ocean Sciences Education Leadership Institute, an annual residential professional development opportunity for classroom teachers and educators at museums, aquariums and education centers in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To help the participants understand ocean density, Hathaway leads inquiry-based activities from the Maury Project, a comprehensive national teacher program, developed by the American Meteorological Society. The enrichment program is based on studies of the physical foundations of oceanography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For one activity, Hathaway, a Maury peer trainer, shows teachers how to plot temperature and salinity data from a simulated shipboard water sample.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I will adapt this lesson for my 5th grade class,” says Ginny Pridgen, a teacher at Union Elementary School in Shallotte. ‘The 5th grade curriculum in North Carolina has a unit on weather. I also can use these lessons in the land formation unit.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 2010 COSEE summer institute, titled “Seas of Change: Exploring Southeastern Climate Change,” brings Pridgen, Hathaway and others to North Carolina State University in Raleigh and the Trinity Center in Salter Path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over nine days, regional marine and climate scientists join the educators to explore the connections between climate change and the ocean, with particular focus on the southeastern region. Climate-change topics include sea level rise, sea surface temperature and ocean chemistry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“There are a lot of misconceptions about climate changes,” says Jessica Whitehead, Sea Grant climate extension specialist in North and South Carolina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These changes may not have much of a visible effect on the teachers, but changes will be seen in their students’ lifetimes, adds Whitehead. “It is incredibly important to educate young people about what climate science can and can’t tell them about future conditions.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thus COSEE-SE continues a focus on climate change and adaptation for a second year. “We realized that climate change was at the top of everybody’s list,” says Lundie Spence, COSEE-SE director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We are building a community of scientists and teachers that can share information with each other.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Funded by the National Science Foundation since 2003, COSEE-SE serves North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. The organization, part of a national network of COSEE thematic and regional centers, is headquartered in Charleston, S.C., at the South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium. Partners include North Carolina and Georgia Sea Grant programs and the University of Georgia Marine Extension Service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n