Students, Educators, Researchers and the Community Unite!

Hampton University (HU) and the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center (VAMSC) have been collaborating for four years in a national network of Communicating Ocean Sciences to Informal Audiences (COSIA) partnerships.  The goal of COSIA is to provide a pipeline for real science to reach the general public in an understandable and meaningful format, and provides an opportunity for VAMSC staff to collaborate with HU faculty and students to develop and conduct outstanding informal education presentations.

In this partnership, participating Hampton University students conduct current environmental research projects, and through the COSIA course they learn how to transfer that knowledge to the general public. HU students also serve as mentors to the middle school students in the Mentoring Young Scientists (MYS) program. The mentor/mentee teams select an environmental topic to investigate and develop into a program for visitors at the VAMSC during the annual Center for Ocean Science Education Excellence (COSEE) - Coastal Trends Weekend event. 

Due to the positive COSIA course partnership experiences between VAMSC and HU, this year, we decided to work with the HU Marine Science Club and the City of Hampton to create the 1^st annual Teen Environmental Conference (TEC) for Hampton City high school students.  The Marine Science Club is participating in three COSIA interactive and hands on workshops. The workshops cover pedagogical topics including the Nature & Practices of Science, Constructing Knowledge, Building Understanding, Learners' Prior Knowledge, and Communicative Approaches in Teaching.  The HU students gain skills from these workshops to present the TEC  science session topics: Coral Reefs, Carbon Footprint, Green Energy/Technology, and Environmental Justice and Ethics, in a format that is interactive and understandable to the high school students during the TEC.  From this innovative partnership we hope  through education, that changes in public behavior will lead to positive environmental awareness and change.