Project CONVERGE: A broader impact plan that engaged educators and students in the process of polar ocean science campaigns

Abstract

The core educational objective of our approach is to use connections between deployed science teams and our target audiences with real-time data to increase awareness and understanding of the Antarctic ecosystem as it responds to global climate change. In 2010–2011 we completed a rigorous field campaign to examine the impact of upwelled Modified Circumpolar Deep Water (MCDW) on the Ross Sea ecosystem (SEAFAReRS). Based on this experience, we applied a multi-tiered education program to a project that linked local physical oceanography to the foraging ecology of Adelie Penguins along the West Antarctic Peninsula (CONVERGE)1. Our approach included educator professional development, data-based classroom lessons to provide students with an understanding of the hypotheses, daily activity blogs developed by an on-site science writer and photographer, scheduled live video connections between the deployed science team and classrooms back in the US, and a Student Research Symposium (with over half of the students using the scientists data in real time to conduct their own investigations). Through a comprehensive evaluation program, educators reported a significant change in their teaching practice of increasing students' data collection and analysis in the field, rather than just in a laboratory. Additionally, the educators and students both reported increases in their engagement in science and identification with science as a result of participating in the project.