OOI Adds Education & Public Engagement Component
(Click to enlarge) Photo provided by Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, with its partners University of Maine and Raytheon Mission Operations and Services, is responsible for the education and public engagement (EPE) software infrastructure of the OOI. The EPE IO will lead the development of educational capabilities for the OOI and leverage the system’s cyberinfrastructure capabilities by constructing a series of software and web-based social networking tools to engage a wide range of users including faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, informal science educators and the general public.
The Education and Public Engagement IO will partner with the existing IOs of the Ocean Observatories Initiative – the University of California, San Diego, the University of Washington, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution – to create a suite of tools, services, and resources that enable the delivery of compelling ocean education experiences through access to observatory data and scientists. These tools and services for the ocean education community will enable the scientific products of the OOI to reach a diverse audience.
Allowing People to See Things They’ve Never Seen Before
The OOI EPE infrastructure will allow people to go places they have never been, and see things they have never seen. EPE resources will be geared toward end-user product developers as they generate new learning environments that maximize the unique and transformative science and engineering capacities of the Ocean Observatories Initiative. This infrastructure will capitalize on the novel aspects of the OOI – including near real-time data, archived data sets, high-bandwidth telemetry, and the creation of an online community of users.
OOI Will Help to Elevate Ocean Literacy
The ability to engage with, and serve a range of education providers and communities, and to encourage partnerships between researchers and educators, marks a critical contribution to the OOI. The goal of elevating ocean literacy recognizes the vital relationship between society and the ocean. The EPE tools and services, in conjunction with the OOI cyberinfrastructure, will provide the technological platform required to make unique education and outreach contributions to:
- Online post-secondary education and technical training programs, with a focus on increasing participation and diversity in ocean science and technical careers; and
- “Free choice” learning environments, both physical and virtual, with a focus on increasing public engagement with ocean science and technology.
