Collaborative Research: Linking Researchers and Graduate Students through COSEE Tools & Services

This proposal will be awarded using funds made available by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).This award provides funds to conduct workshops aimed at improving the broader impacts efforts of scientists. Through professional development workshops, scientist-graduate student teams will produce interactive materials based on the ?Ocean Literacy? and ?Climate Literacy? principles that can be specifically designed for a variety of audiences. The primary target audiences for this project are the research scientists and graduate students who participate in the project workshops. Through team-building and COSEE-facilitated long-term contact, the project will provide sustained professional development training opportunities that result in deeper content understanding and/or confidence in teaching to lay audiences, for researchers and graduate students alike. The secondary audience is on-line users who will benefit from the project outputs: namely the interactive ocean-climate content and user-centered data tools developed as part of this effort. Learning and interaction data of target audiences will be collected and evaluated by participating COSEE Centers. These evaluation results will be used to refine the approach, workshop model, and resulting online products throughout the project