Hi Laura.  Thanks for writing and for sharing STEMSEAS with your students!  

We're keen to measure the impact of going to sea so keeping in touch with the participants is key.  We have two STEMSEAS Facebook communities, a page open to all and a page for alumni.  We also have a presence on Instagram.  So far, it seems that our cohorts are staying in touch with each other.  On the alumni FB page our participants post personal updates, pose questions and announce opportunities of all kinds.  

Another mechanism for maintaining connections among participants and with the PIs is reconnecting at meetings (e.g., AGU, ASLO, SACNAS). We've been able to help the students come to meetings and with networking.  One of our students from 2016 gave a talk in ASL (with a speaking translator) at the Denver GSA meeting.  Another student gave a TEDX talk.  Each of these follow up activities provided additional, yet informal, mentoring and networking opportunities.  

Lastly, we've made some connections for what we describe as "added value science" that our on-board mentors and collaborators have fostered.  We're always on the lookout for synergies.  From this we've had students do shore-based work with Kristen St John (James Madison), Mark Leckie (UMass-Amherst), Jess Conroy (U. of Ill.) and Diane  Thompson (U. of Az.), among others.

We're doing pre- and post-surveys to gauge impact and so far it looks like students' understanding of geoscience career paths is increasing significantly. 

Great news on all fronts - thanks for responding to my questions. I wish you continued success!

Hi Erin.  Thanks for writing.  We do have data on the majors of our applicants and those that sail, but I don't have a breakdown to share at this point.  Our main target is early-stage, STEM-curious but as yet uncommitted students. In 2018, for example, 29% of our participant were in 2-year colleges. We are keen to help students find success in moving from 2-year to 4-year programs.  Generally we also aim to sail one student that is fully geoscience-committed. We also try to sail one student from a subset of non-STEM fields to help generate interesting conversations and reflection (e.g., Journalism, English, Communications Media, Film Studies). Non-geoscience students that have sailed to date include majors in Ecology, Environmental Science, Marine Biology and Pre-Med. 

Just to add to Jon's comments, I would say that a lot of our students do not yet have a declared major, and that's our main target - so that we can offer them an exciting glimpse into this world and see if we can persuade them to join it in some way!

Sharon,

This is such a great opportunity for future science teachers in that it gives future STEM teachers and STEM leaders a chance to actually do or assist in scientific research on topics of such immense importance in these critical times. Working with scientists and seeing how scientific research is done on an ongoing basis will pay dividends over and over and help these students to better understand the real world of marine science. Their future classrooms will benefit for years to come. Excellent project! 

Thanks so much, David! Just to clarify, this program is aimed at undergraduates and not specifically at teachers. I hope that some of them DO become teachers, though!  :) 

Hi Jay

Thanks for your encouraging comments and thoughtful questions.  I'll provide some responses now and might be able to add more later. In order:

1. We had 5 transits in 2018 and have 5 planned for this year.  That's our target but the actuals depend on appropriate transit opportunities among other factors. 

2. These are basically non-operational transits so we work with the ship operators, our scientific mentor teams and colleagues that have research objectives in the area to do "added-value" science if possible.  That could be running bathymetric surveys across features that someone has interest in, doing molecular biology surveys using water samples collected at different depths from CTD casts, or doing net tows to examine plankton and/or sediment.  We have also partnered with some early-career scientists that have separately funded projects that need samples collected in open water.  We expect some of the sampling work to lead to follow-up shore-based research opportunities for interested students.  

3. Naturally we hope that some of what they learn is retained but we are not as concerned about the content specifics as we are with the degree that the exposure influences their trajectories in STEM and geoscience.  So far we seem to be having success in broadening the participants' understanding of possible career paths in geoscience.

4. We have had more applications and participants that identify as Hispanic or Latino than that identify as African American or Black. We are keen to reach more potential applicants at both HSIs and HBCUs.  The MSIs that we have had the most contact with are those with faculty who helped us to build the program.  We have "campus champions" at an array of MSIs but we would like that list to grow. It has grown organically but we are very keen for our network to expand, especially to HBCS as nearly all do not have geoscience programs. 

Thanks again for your interest.  I expect that I or my co-presenters will chime in with additional details.   

Hello Again Jay

I wanted to add a bit more detail to my earlier response about our student demographics (#4 above).  For our five transits in 2018 the students self identified as follows: 13% African American or Black; 15% Asian or Asian American; 42% Hispanic or Latino; 4% Native American; 2% Pacific Islander; and 44% White.  In terms of education stage, 29% were in 2-year schools and 57% were either freshman or sophomores.  We're actively working to create deeper connections with faculty at more HBCUs and we're open to new ways of making sincere connections.  

hi Jay - 

And just to add a little to Jon's comments:

1. In terms of the research projects, they are not designed to be in-depth, mainly because the timeframe is so short. They are more for allowing students to explore how science works in the field and "real world," ask questions, develop hypotheses, think about how to test them, work with their colleagues and see the breadth of research opportunities that are available to them. It's more a research primer and intro than a project that they might undertake in an REU-type of experience where they are working on one longer-term project for weeks at a time.

And, yes, we are working hard at increasing our recruiting success and partnerships with HBCUs so that we get more applicants and participants from these communities. In fact, we just submitted a supplemental funding request to assist us in doing this. And if you have additional ideas, we'd love to talk about them!!

Thanks so much!

Hi Ivory

Our posts crossed in e-space (see below).  Thanks for the encouraging comments and questions.  We have advertised the STEMSEAS opportunities using a combination of approaches.  At the outset we made connections with "campus champions," faculty and administrators at an array of schools from 2-year to HBCUs to HSI to R1s. As soon as our calendar is set and we are poised to receive applications we spread word to our partners.  We also post updates to our STEMSEAS Facebook page and to our program homepage.  In addition, because the PIs have deep connections to the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP), we share the opportunity with perhaps 100s of IODP scientists in our network. Our target audience is STEM-interested early stage students so we strive for faculty to announce the program in their larger general-education STEM classes for non-majors. Regarding your second question, our applicant pool is not as diverse as we would like.  Roughly 10% of applicants identify as Black or African American.  We are aiming to make new connections with HBCUs with STEM programs in hopes of getting students out to sea so they might see a future that leans to geoscience applications and possibly graduate study in fields such as geochemistry, biological oceanography or geophysics.  The geosciences remain the least diverse STEM field and this means scientists with much needed skills are not currently living/working in communities on the forefront of global change. This is a priority for us. Regarding what is next, we would like to grow our connections to HBCUs, for example to deepen our relationship with Savannah State's Marine Science program and to forge new ones. In particular because geoscience is on offer at only a couple of HBCUs, we are keen to explore current mentoring and research practices at a suite of HBCU campuses with an eye to building a faculty professional development program to that take advantage of the U.S. Academic Fleet. We're keen to explore any number of options and would love to hear from folks with ideas.  

And to add to Jon's comments, we are also looking at the possibility of expanding ship opportunities to other ships - perhaps working with NOAA and/or ONR. We're open to all possibilities for exploration. Our pool of qualified applicants is always much more than our spots available, so it would be great to have more spaces to put them in.

We are also making an effort to provide funding for student alumni of the program to sail on "real" research cruises and to present at professional meetings and conferences.

Thanks!

Thank you and please tell Katie that she did a really nice production.

Thank you so much Judith. To add in on this discussion as well, I just graduated with a Communications Media degree, however, took part in this program this past October as a student. Growing up, I loved marine biology, but wanted to be with people more than just to my studies, so I went a different route. My interest in this trip started as "I love the ocean and if I could find a way to document science and have an adventure, that would be incredible." Before this trip, I did not even know that science communications existed. I learned much more than I anticipated from this trip and now my career goals are more science oriented. Now, I am considering getting some degree or research experience in biology. Without STEMSEAS, I wouldn't have known science communications was a real option for me!

Yes, it is! Thanks to the NSF grant!

Thanks Justin!

Recognition that there was unused capacity on ships in the U.S. academic fleet was an aha moment for us. We've come to learn that others had similar eureka moments and many acted on these in one-opportunity-at-a-time fashion.  Our timing was lucky and we found incredible enthusiasm from UNOLS leadership and the NSF to test this model more systematically. STEMSEAS would not be possible without their support, nor without enormous help from the ship operators (U. Del., URI, UAF, OR State U., Scripps, and WHOI thus far), graduate students keen to help, and faculty from across the U.S. that share the STEMSEAS vision.  

Ditto on this, Justin. We were in the right place at the right time, and pulled from experience with IODP and the scientific drilling ship, JOIDES Resolution, with whom we had been doing a similar thing for a number of years. We're very excited to share this resource with students!

Thanks, Raquel!!

Thank you, Tim!!

Thanks, Deanne!