| "We want to get across the basic points that this area is valuable, that it's here, and it's protected." | |
| Shelley Du Puy, Flower Garden Banks Sanctuary |
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The challenge for many National Marine Sanctuary educators is teaching people about an environment that may be hundreds of miles from shore and more than 100 feet underwater. A Texas sanctuary is making a big splash with workshops for scuba diving educators from around the country.
"Each teacher works with at least 30 to 100 kids every single year," explains Shelley Du Puy, education coordinator at Flower Garden Banks Sanctuary, which is 110 miles south of the Texas/Louisiana border and harbors the northernmost coral reefs in the U.S. "By targeting 20 teachers a year, we're hitting way more students than we could otherwise."
Down Under, Out Yonder is an intensive four-day workshop for kindergarten through 12th-grade educators. It includes a reef fish identification course, lectures on reef management issues, and three days of diving in the sanctuary. Fish surveys collected during the dives are added to the sanctuary's database and help with monitoring efforts.
The primary purpose of the workshops, Du Puy says, is to increase the public's general awareness of the sanctuary and coastal management issues. She notes that many people in the state think Flower Gardens is a "seed catalog company or botanical garden. We want to get across the basic points that this area is valuable, that it's here, and it's protected."
Working in partnership with the nonprofit Gulf of Mexico Foundation, the sanctuary began offering the workshops six years ago. A committee selects participants from an annual pool of about 40 applicants. Educators selected must be experienced, certified scuba divers; commit to including education about the sanctuary in whatever subject they teach; and outline how they plan to use their experience to enhance their instruction. While science teachers are an obvious choice for the program, Du Puy says art and language educators also have been selected. Deadline for applications is late March.
Seventy-five percent of the participants must be from Gulf coast states, with the other 25 percent being from other states. Educators pay $200 for the experience, and the program partners provide about $800 worth of curriculum materials, meals, lodging, and other supplies.
Educators are tested at the beginning and end of the workshop to "evaluate how much they've learned, and to let us know how well we're imparting that knowledge," Du Puy says. Afterwards, participants write a report on how the material was used in the classroom. Examples Du Puy cites include an art teacher who had his classes draw the reef fish; a second-grade teacher who had her students create their own reef; and a school principal who started a scuba diving certification program to encourage enrollment in marine science courses.
Students have been so motivated by the added instruction that they have raised money for research and animal protection in the sanctuary, Du Puy says. Participants have been so enthusiastic about the experience that a second, more in-depth program for workshop alumni has been developed.
"Coastal managers often complain that citizens don't have enough science knowledge to understand the decisions they are making," Du Puy says. "We are working to produce better informed citizens. That can't do anything but help."
For more information about Down Under, Out Yonder, contact Shelley Du Puy at (979) 779-2705 or Shelley.Dupuy@noaa.gov.
