Workshops and Professional Development

Winged Ambassadors: Ocean Literacy Through the Eyes of Albatross Teacher Workshop
Albatrosses, charismatic and threatened seabirds, are ambassadors for a clean ocean. They traverse vast oceanic regions searching for floating food. Along their journeys, they ingest plastic trash and are hooked in fisheries.
Winged Ambassadors is a set of five lessons that use real data from current research tracking albatross migrations and ocean plastic pollution. The lessons use inquiry-based science instruction, aligned to standards for grades 6-8 with extensions for grades 9-12.

Our Changing Ocean and Estuaries Workshop Series
Do you wonder how climate change will impact the San Francisco Bay Area coastal and estuarine environments - and our lives? Learn from local scientists how local estuaries and ocean habitats are being used as laboratories to track and understand climate change. Gain knowledge and tools to implement climate change topics into your curriculum with a focus on our coastal and estuarine habitats.

Dive into Education
Dive into Education ocean science workshop provides teachers with educational expertise, resources and training to support ocean and climate literacy in the classroom. Workshops have been held in Hawaii, Georgia and American Samoa. Check out the archive to find out more.

Science at Sea Workshops
The Science at Sea workshop is designed to give educators first hand knowledge and experience of the role science and technology play in managing and protecting our natural resources, such as those found in Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary. The workshop offers three days on land, and two days on board research vessel Manta using a combination of presentations, student-directed explorations, demonstrations, group discussions, classroom activities, field exercises. Check back to find out more about the 2014 schedule.

At Your School in San Francisco
Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary's At Your School programs in San Francisco bring the ocean to your classroom. They have programs for K-12 that encourage your students to discover the wonder of ocean science without leaving the school grounds. Programs are standards-based and topics vary by grade and include crabs, sharks, marine birds and how scientists study sea life.

LiMPETS Teacher Workshops
Are you interested in learning about rocky intertidal and sandy beach monitoring techniques? Would you like to set up a field monitoring site with your students? If so, check out the professional development opportunities we have available.

Coral Reef Workshops and Scuba Diving Adventure for Teachers
The Gulf of Mexico Foundation offers the annual Down Under, Out Yonder (aka DUOY) workshop for K-12 and college entry educators nationwide. DUOY is a five-day teacher workshop that includes a two day land-based workshop and three days of scuba diving in the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary. The next DUOY workshop is scheduled for July 11-16, 2014.

Rivers to Reef Workshops
This week-long teacher workshop led by the Georgia Aquarium and NOAA's Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary staff immerses teachers into the watery world as they learn about watersheds, water quality, current aquatic issues and river, marsh and reef ecosystems. This workshop takes teachers from the headwaters of the Ocmulgee River to the Georgia Coast aboard a research ship that sails 20 miles offshore to Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary where participants see the reef in real-time through the use of remotely operated vehicles or ROV technology. Check out the 2010, 2011 and 2012 mission logs from the workshop.

Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Teacher Workshop
Looking to link technology with ocean exploration and research? Join the Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary and Georgia Aquarium for a ROV Teacher Workshop in Atlanta, Georgia. During this hands-on workshop, teachers build their own Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) from PVC pipe and other materials while learning about ROV technology and its use in research, monitoring and exploration of national marine sanctuaries.

Excite your Students with Marine Technology and Maritime Heritage
The NOAA Monitor National Marine Sanctuary holds annual underwater robot building workshops across the mid-Atlantic beginning during the summer. The sanctuary also hosts half-day and day-long summer teacher workshops on a variety of science and history topics during the summer.

Watershed Academy Workshop
The Watershed Academy Workshop will provide teachers and youth leaders with the tools, resources and support to integrate locally relevant, hands-on watershed and ocean science in public education and extended learning programs. This FREE workshop is for teachers and youth leaders interested in facilitating the Watershed Academy at their school site or youth centers.Read more about this innovative multicultural program, or contact sanctuary.education@noaa.gov for more information.

Channel Islands MERITO Academy
The MERITO Academy is a partnership between Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary and Channel Islands Marine Resource Institute. The MERITO Academy's goal is to increase students' understanding of coastal and ocean issues through hands-on, in the field and in-class activities while exposing students to careers in science and building pride and stewardship towards their sanctuary and local environments.

Ocean Science Professional Development Workshop
These Ocean Science Teacher Workshops are hosted by the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary and the Seattle Aquarium. They are designed for 4th and 5th grade teachers in the Puget Sound and Washington's outer coast areas to better prepare them to use inquiry-based marine science as a context for learning about ecosystems and ocean literacy principles. Participants will engage in activities that support inquiry-based, experiential learning in the classroom and at the beach. Teachers will learn how to design their own investigations in the field to help them to better understand real world marine science.

Animals in Curriculum-based Ecosystem Studies (ACES) Program
Are you interested in tracking ocean animals live in your classroom? ACES is an important, necessary expansion of Signals of Spring, an award-winning, classroom based curriculum program in which students use Earth imagery to explain the movement of animals that are tracked by NOAA's operational satellites. Students will study aspects of the animal's life history, conservation status, food web, and connections to ocean processes and remote sensing data. Find out more about the ACES Program, by contacting Jenny Stock.

Charting a Course for Maritime Heritage Education
This is a conference that brought together formal and informal educators to promote the sharing of maritime related education partnerships, programs and products.