Education

Oregon Sea Grant has a long history of marine education, both formal and informal. Students and teachers have benefited for years from Sea Grant's science-based marine education programs. We've provided dozens of graduate and undergraduate students with first-hand learning opportunities in ocean policy, resource management, and related fields. And uncounted coastal visitors go home knowing more about the sea thanks to Sea Grant-originated programs such as Whale Watch Weeks.

In recent years, we've turned our attention to learning just what it is that makes such programs work, from museums and aquariums to the things people choose to learn on their own.

Free-Choice Learning

For most of us, learning isn't something confined to school. In fact, some studies suggest that as much as 97 percent of what we learn takes place outside the classroom. How people learn when left to their own devices is the overriding question of Sea Grant's Free-choice Learning Initiative, a collaboration with the OSU College of Science and some world-class scholars in the field of free-choice learning. This young program is jointly based on the OSU campus and at the Hatfield Marine Science Center, whose Visitor Center serves as a living laboratory for the study of voluntary human learning.

Sea Grant is dedicating special funding over a five-year period (starting in 2006) to support a new Sea Grant professorship through OSU's College of Science. The first co-holders of that senior faculty position, Lynn Dierking and John Falk, will use the theme of ocean and coastal science to establish a national focal point for research and teaching in free-choice learning.
Contacts: Lynn Dierking, John Falk, Shawn Rowe

HMSC Visitor Center

People of all ages have a chance to learn about the ocean and coastal environment at the popular Visitor Center at Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center. Located on the rich Yaquina Bay Estuary in Newport, Oregon, the Visitor Center is the public face of a complex of marine research labs operated by OSU, NOAA, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and other agencies. Through interactive exhibits and programs, the Visitor Center helps explain that research and what it tells us about the natural world. Among the educational activities offered at the Center are classes, nature walks, lectures, seminars and year-round programs for the whole family. The Visitor Center also boasts a small but excellent bookstore specializing in books and games about the natural world. Admission is by donation.
Contact: Nancee Hunter

Sea Grant Marine Education Program

Also based at the HMSC, Sea Grant's marine education program offers classes, day camps, walking tours and a variety of special programs, including our popular Home School Days, for children from pre-school up. Special programs are available on request for K-12 classes and home schoolers. Classes and summer camps fill quickly, so be sure to register early.
Contact: Tracy Crews

Aquatic Ornamental Health Program

Dr. Tim Miller-Morgan oversees this unique education and outreach program aimed at the ornamental fish industry - breeders, shippers, retailers, and hobbyists. A centerpiece of the program is the Aquarium Science associate degree program at the Central Coast Community College. The goal is to provide instruction and training opportunities for students interested in learning aquatic animal husbandry skills. Graduates are already finding employment in public aquariums, research groups, fish hatcheries, aquaculture production facilities, aquarium service businesses, and the ornamental fish trade.
Contact: Tim Miller-Morgan

Graduate and undergraduate fellowships and internships

Sea Grant offers a variety of graduate and undergraduate fellowships and internships, ranging from the John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowships, which place marine resource graduates in federal agency positions in the nation's capitol, to opportunities to work with the Oregon Legislature and various marine resource agencies. Fellowship and internship opportunities change as funding is available; we maintain an e-mail list to announce new ones as they come along. Subscribe here.
Contact: Julie Risien