The Inner Space Center is pleased to offer a Summer 2022 session of its Ocean Science Exploration Camp, a week-long, Rhode Island, day camp focused on different oceanographic themes. During this summer’s program, activities will focus on biological oceanography. Through a variety of hands-on activities, demonstrations, and field investigations, campers will follow the dynamic, ocean food chain, starting at the bottom with microscopic life and culminating with large, macroscopic predators such as sharks and whales. Using the tools of biological oceanographers, campers will explore the physiology of survival in diverse marine environments, from the shallow ocean to the deep, dark, benthic environments found along the ocean seafloor. Throughout the week, campers also tune into live oceanographic expeditions and are surrounded by video, audio, and other oceanographic data, experiencing the amazing ocean discoveries that unfold at the ISC in real time. Campers also visit university laboratory facilities, engage with scientists that are involved in active missions, and discover ocean careers.

This camp tends to fill up fast! For more details and a registration link, please visit the ISC Camps page.

The Inner Space Center (ISC) will host another virtual professional development (PD) program for Rhode Island middle and high school teachers on March 15, 2021.  Details and a registration link are below.  Questions?  Please contact Holly Morin (holly_morin@uri.edu).

Date/Time: Monday, March 15, 2021, 9:30 – 11 am ET

Provider: Inner Space Center in partnership with Next Gen Education, LLC

Presenter: Peter McLaren, Executive Director, Next Gen Education LLC

Cost: $25 (check or credit card)

Program description: The Framework for K-12 Science Education (NRC, 2012) identifies three dimensions around which K-12 science education must be built. One of the three dimensions, crosscutting concepts, unify the study of science and engineering. Crosscutting concepts also help students structure their thinking to focus on understanding specific aspects of a phenomenon.

Crosscutting concepts provide a consistent language for educators to communicate with students. This 90-minute professional development (PD) workshop will provide educators with meaningful insights into creating consistent and clear prompts structured around crosscutting concepts that could be used within each phase of an instructional sequence. By structing prompts using the crosscutting concepts, student reasoning can be directed to key aspects of a phenomenon and how/why it occurs. This sets the stage for meaningful formative assessment opportunities.

This PD program, hosted by the University of Rhode Island’s Inner Space Center (ISC), in partnership with Next Gen Education, will provide educators with a framework of ocean science media and educational resources to support crosscutting concept investigations. The expanded program will also involve time for active discussion and idea exchange.

Registration for this PD program is $25 and space will be limited to the first 50 registrants. A waiting list will be maintained for interested individuals. A certificate of participation will be provided to those educators that participate in the live PD event and complete a brief exit survey.

Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcrduirpjkiH9bI_RiY02_TX76ymXUxqldm

Students from the University of Rhode Island Honors Program will depart Tuesday, April 3 on a six-day oceanographic research expedition, and you are invited to come along. Learn about their exciting research and directly ask the students and scientists questions during three live broadcasts and one hosted event.

The ISC will broadcast LIVE from URI’s research vessel, the RV Endeavor, to Facebook on April 5, 6 and 7, and during a community event April 6 at URI’s White Hall, 39 Butterfield Road, on the Kingston campus. Dates and details are below, as well as the ISC’s Endeavor Live page.

The research expedition from April 3 through 8 will focus on whale and zooplankton interactions with the environment that occur in the coastal and offshore waters of Rhode Island. The expedition is part of CSI: Oceans, a URI honors class led by Karen Wishner, oceanography professor at GSO, and Christopher Orphanides, chief scientist and a GSO graduate student.

These broadcasts will run about 25 minutes:
Endeavor Live! Facebook Live Events

• Thursday, April 5 at 7 p.m.
• Friday, April 6 at 7 p.m.
• Saturday, April 7 at 6 p.m.

Be sure to “like” the Inner Space Center Facebook page to follow this expedition and others.

Endeavor Live! Community Event
Thursday, April 5 at 7 p.m.
White Hall Auditorium on the URI campus in Kingston.
This event is open to the public; no registration is required.