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Log | School News

NSF Awards Marine Lab $1 Million for Teaching Fellows Program

Celia BonaventuraA new teaching fellows program at the Duke Marine Lab is giving K-12 students in four eastern North Carolina schools a direct window to research about life in variable and polluted marine coastal environments.

A $1,006,850 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) placed 14 Duke students—three doctoral students, five Master of Environmental Management students, and six undergraduates—into Carteret County schools for the next three years, where they can share their research and add hands-on learning activities to the classroom experience.

The teaching fellows are devoting 15 hours a week to the project. The format encourages learning, and promotes the goal of the NSF to enrich science and mathematics education in the nation’s schools.

“The Duke Marine Lab has responded to concerns of local residents about coastal pollution by partnering with K-12 schools to raise environmental awareness. The addition of this program contributes to this partnership by benefiting the teaching fellows educationally and by allowing them to bring their special knowledge into the classroom to reconnect children to nature,” said Celia Bonaventura, primary investigator for the project and professor of cell biology. Bonaventura is based at the Duke Marine Lab in Beaufort, which is part of the Nicholas school. Michael K. Orbach, director of the Duke Marine Lab, and Steve Desper, coordinator of the program for the Duke Marine Lab, are co-principal investigators.

Carteret County schools participating include Smyrna Elementary School, Newport Middle School, East Carteret High School in Beaufort, and West Carteret High School in Morehead City. As part of the program, some 27 computer-assisted microscopes will be installed in the schools and used in studies of marine and freshwater environments.

David Lenker, Carteret County School superintendent, said, “It is the school system’s belief that relevant, hands-on activities help motivate students to become life-long learners. As many families in Carteret County depend upon the water for their livelihoods, it is only natural that schools support the use of the local environment as a living laboratory”.

Duke is one of 22 institutions nationwide to receive three-year grants from the NSF’s Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12) program. The program is intended to encourage graduate students to increase their communication skills by sharing science and mathematics expertise. Assisted by faculty mentors, the teaching fellows will bring inquiry-based projects into the K-12 classrooms. The projects will draw on marine resources and illustrate the importance of science, mathematics, engineering and technology.

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