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Join us on Monday  December 21 at 8pm ET to discuss   Supernavigators: Exploring the Wonders of How Animals   Find Their Way by David Barrie

Animals plainly know where they’re going, but how they know has remained a stubborn mystery—until now.  David Barrie consults animal behaviorists and Nobel Prize–winning scientists to catch us up on the cutting edge of animal intelligence—revealing these wonders in a whole new light.

In January, we'll read Blackfish City, a young adult fiction book and have the author join us! This might be a great opportunity for  students to read and join in the discussion as well! 

Find the entire book schedule for 2020/2021 and information on how to join each meeting. Check out our Book Club Archives with book selections and discussion questions from previous Book Clubs. Everyone is always welcome!

A special thanks for all our frequent bookclub participants who've sparked many great conversations and also have been a lot of fun! Hope to see you in December.

Read about a new species of black coral discovered at NOAA's Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary. The unusual black coral was discovered in 2016, collected in 2017, and verified as a new species in a journal article in October. The discovery team included a group of undergraduate minority student researchers and their professor from City University of New York. The team contributed to the collection and genetic characterization of the species.

Check out information on Coral Spawning from NOAA's Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary as well. Every August, the reef-building corals there put on a fantastic spawning display!

“If you think sexism only thrives in Hollywood, you haven’t visited a a science department...” says scientist Rita Colwell, a pioneering microbiologist and the first woman to lead the National Science Foundation. 

Climate Interactive Co-Director Andrew Jones will walk through all of the newest features and updates to the climate model used in the  climate roleplaying game that creates accessible, scientifically rigorous tools that help people see connections, play out scenarios, and address the biggest challenge humanity faces. .En-ROADS will be launching an updated version in December. This will mark the biggest update to En-ROADS since it was release last year — please join to hear all about it. Sign up for the webinar.

Learn how to implement SeaDoc Society's Explore the Salish Sea curriculum in the long-awaited SeaDoc Workshop. Receive hands-on, standards-aligned Salish Sea-based lesson plans for 4-8th grade students, based on the best-selling book, Explore the Salish Sea: A Nature Guide for Kids. 

Register here: www.juniorseadoctors.org/workshops  You will receive a secure Zoom link via email.

The CIRES/NOAA Science@Home speaker series connects middle and high school students and classrooms that are now in the virtual/remote learning landscape with scientists. 

Science@Home: Environmental Economics in a Polarized World w/ Matt Burgess will take place this Tuesday at 3 pm ET. Burgess is an Assistant Professor in Environmental Studies, with a courtesy appointment in Economics. His research focuses on natural resource management, endangered species conservation, and issues in global sustainability. He uses a combination of mathematical and computer modeling, data synthesis, and collaboration with stakeholders, in order to make conceptual advances and link them to practice.

Join the livestream. For the full schedule, also in Spanish, go to the CIRES website, 

Coral reefs are the rainforests of the ocean. They are beautiful, diverse, and extremely important for healthy ocean ecosystems and strong communities. Engage your elementary students (Grades 2-6 but all ages will enjoy) as they learn all about coral reef ecosystems, why they matter, and what you can do to help them. This webinar is brought to you by NOAA's Coral Reef Conservation Program in West Palm Beach, FL, Sea Grant, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution! Access it here at any time!

Join Mote Marine Laboratory for an online event to learn more about what it means to be Black in Marine Sciences from panelists Jasmin Graham - Shark Science; Amanda Hodo - Aquarium Science; Alex Troutman - Wetland Ecology; and Jeanette Davis - Marine Microbiologist

Educators and students can register for direct access to the panel. Contact MarSci-LACE for details. The public can watch this event streamed live on YouTube: youtu.be/ALcJ04yHONQ

Format: Zoom webinar and YouTube Livestream. Find More Details here…

The blend of the Hawaiian and Samoan tapa design in this coloring book illustrates its underlying theme: that the vast distances between islands in the Pacific are bridged by the cultures of the people and the natural resources of the coral reef. The Polynesian culture evolved in the world of the coral reef. Their appreciation of the life found in the reef ecosystem comes from millennia of dependence on the reef for their livelihood. Download it for students' use here.

The 2020 Ocean Awareness Contest, "Climate Hope: Transforming Crisis," invited middle and high school students from around the world to learn about climate change and solutions, and create work that explores hope in action. More than 5,300 students from 92 countries and 49 U.S. states responded with paintings, poems, songs, documentaries, dances, animations, apps, stories & more.

The 350+ winning pieces were selected by a team of judges comprising artists, ocean scientists, writers, filmmakers, and educators. Bow Seat awarded over $83,000 in prizes to winning participants. To view, read, watch, and share the 2020 Ocean Awareness Contest winners, visit bowseat.org/winners!

2021 Ocean Awareness Contest is accepting submissions through June 14, 2021. For complete details, including resources for educators, visit the Ocean Awareness Contest Overview >

This corals tutorial is an overview of the biology of and threats to coral reefs, as well as efforts being made to conserve and protect them. It includes images, animations, and videos.

The Roadmap to Resources complements the tutorial. It directs you to specific online coral data and information from NOAA. It is also an online resource in NSTA's SciLinks database.  SciLinks provide students and teachers access to Web-based, educationally appropriate science content that has been formally evaluated by master teachers.

Coral Reef Watch (CRW) is a program in NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) Center. It uses satellite observations to monitor and predict coral reef environments to help resource managers, scientists, and other stakeholders observe, study, manage, protect, and restore the world's coral reef ecosystems. 

This tutorial is designed for students, teachers, and everyone who want to learn more about coral reefs and satellite remote sensing technology. Multiple lessons address the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for use in the classroom. Find the Coral Reef Watch tutorial here.

NASA measures sea level around the globe using satellites, specifically the Jason-3 satellite using radio waves and other instruments every 10 days, Learn about how this is done and other important sea level facts via these NASA sites:

This website features science education resources and online courses for grades 2–12. The platform uses a “smart algorithm,” to identify an individual’s specific learning gaps. As students work through the units in each course, teachers track students’ learning progress and can use the resulting data to create differentiated teaching plans and assign relevant homework tasks for individual students or the entire class. All the science courses are exam standard–specific and support the Next Generation Science Standards. Register for a free account to preview the available courses.

Community for Advancing Discovery Research in Education (CADRE) is a network for STEM education researchers funded by the National Science Foundation. The network connects researchers working on initiatives to improve education in STEM and publishes materials to communicate information on important themes in STEM education. While most projects target middle and high school levels, several projects target data skills at the elementary level. Check out the network and its projects here.

Designed by Discovery Education and Tata Consultancy Services, Ignite My Future in School is a transdisciplinary digital curriculum to engage students in computational thinking strategies across core subject areas. The curriculum features 40 standards-based, digital activities emphasizing the components of computational thinking, which include processes such as collecting data, analyzing data, finding patterns, and more.Activities can be searched by computational thinking strategy, core subject, or guiding question. Find activities here.  

Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Environmental Solutions Initiative offers an interactive climate change primer written by Kerry Emanuel, a professor in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences. The online document aims to answer these questions: How do we know climate change is occurring and that it’s caused by humans? How strong is the evidence? What are the expected risks, and what can we do about them? Find it here!

Also from MIT: MIT Open Ocean Seminar: Revolutionizing Ocean Data; Dec 7, 2020 1:30 PM ET

A new report, from the National Center for Science Education and the Texas Freedom Network Education Foundation, examines the treatment of climate change in state science standards across the country. To what extent are public schools helping students understand what is happening and preparing them to responsibly engage in civic deliberation on the problem and possible solutions? The interactive version of the report includes a map you can click on to learn your state’s grade. Find the report here.