Hawaiʻi Island Meaningful Environmental Education for Teachers (HI MEET)

TEACH MARINE SCIENCE BY DOING MARINE SCIENCE

NOAA managed B-WET funding enabled The Kohala Center to recruit twenty Hawaiʻi Island teachers to participate in a unique professional development program that provided them with the opportunity to work with expert mentors over the course of the 2006–2007 academic year. These secondary school teachers designed and implemented marine science curricula that connected classroom work with field-based research. Funding from the program was leveraged with the Hidden Jewels Program in North Kohala, an effort that extended the teacher audience to include select elementary teachers.

Six components to the Hawaiʻi Island Meaningful Environmental Education for Teachers (HI-MEET) program were designed to provide flexibility in meeting teacher needs, styles, and availability. These included:

1. continuing professional development for teachers
2. on-going mentorship and scientist-partner support during the academic year so that teacher-student groups were able to design and implement field research projects
3. direct assistance for field research projects through mini-grants
4. development of a set of resources and alliances for teachers who were interested in environmental education
5. a Web site for sharing among project participants
6. a culminating marine science conference for students and teachers

HI-MEET Teachers participated in (a) one three-day workshop, (b) one two-day workshop, (c) four additional meetings, and (d) a closing conference.

Preference was given to teams of multi-disciplinary and multi-grade teachers. The first training was held at Connections School in Hilo where Dr. Erin Baumgartner of UH-Mānoa provided teachers with experiences in inquiry-based curriculum instruction and opportunities to share ideas and plans for their classroom projects.

Group meetings continued through the academic year based on teachers’ schedules and needs. Participating teachers paired with a scientist and/or a master teacher in a field of interest such as coral reef ecology, marine biology, or watershed effects on marine life. The mentors helped teachers design projects that were implemented in their classrooms in the winter-spring of 2007. Mini-grants were available to participating teachers for supplies, transportation, and other costs associated with implementing the field projects. Teachers worked with mentors via e-mail, phone, and direct classroom study. A culminating island-wide science conference held in April 2007 featured mentors, teachers, and their students sharing the results of environmental science projects.