Two Boats, Three Summers, Five Universities, One Dozen Instructors, and Sixty-Five Teachers: A Collaborative Oceanography Field Program for Earth Science

A three-day field workshop was an integral component of the graduate-level course entitled, Oceanography, that was offered by Virginia Earth Science Collaborative Project (VESC) to help Virginia educators earn the earth science teaching endorsement. The VESC partner institutions that offered Oceanographngeorge Mason University, James Madison University, the University of Virginia Southwest Center, and Virginia Commonwealth University-lacked direct access to research and education facilities en the coast. The College of William & Mary, another VESC partner, provided this resource through the Virginia Institute of Marine Science’s (VIMS) Eastern Shore Laboratory in Wachapreague, Virginia. The field program agenda and activities were developed and conducted by a team comprised of VESC oceanography faculty, Virginia Sea Grant educators, and a scientist from VIMS. This collaboration resulted in a program design used as the basis for six workshops conducted over three summers. Seventy-nine Virginia middle school and high school science teachers took part in the six workshops, conducted in July of 2005, 2006, and 2007. This article describes the workshop activities and provides perspectives on its design and implementation from the viewpoints of Virginia Sea Grant educators who served as field instructors