Key Inner Space Center Staff involved with Marine Technology for Teachers and Students (MaTTS):

• Gail Scowcroft, Principal Investigator (PI)  and Project Director
• Dwight Coleman, Co-Principal Investigator
• Andrea Gingras, Project Coordinator
• Chris Knowlton, Marine Research Associate
• Holly Morin, Marine Research Associate
• Derek Sutcliffe, Associate Marine Development Engineer
  

The MaTTS Project was a three-year collaboration between the University of Rhode Island’s Inner Space Center (ISC), the University of Connecticut, and Eidos Education LLC. MaTTS was designed as an ITEST Strategies project to assess a 15-month long teacher professional development and student engagement continuum that comprised both hands-on and information technology-enabled interventions. The project focused on providing opportunities for teams of Southern New England teachers and students in MaTTS partner school districts. The teams interacted with new technologies related to exploring the global ocean. They discovered pathways toward marine careers using these new tools, as they developed leadership capacities.

Three cohorts of teachers and students participated in the following activities:

• Direct, face-to-face teacher professional development with ocean scientists at both the University of Rhode Island and the University of Connecticut.
• Virtual contact in the classroom with ocean scientists and oceanographic expeditions using webinar and telepresence technologies.
• Summer institute for teacher/student teams, including the building and deploying of sensor based instruments (hydrophones, remotely operated vehicles, and observational buoys), field exercises, and career building activities.
• After school Science Cafes for teachers and students.

MaTTS Project teacher and student leaders benefited from their participation by:

• Receiving in-depth content and marine technology training.
• Meeting and engaging with ocean scientists, engineers, and technicians.
• Developing an understanding for and gain experience with marine technologies.
• Becoming knowledgeable of marine and technical careers to assist with college applications.
• Acquiring new skills that are transferable to other classes
• Gaining leadership skills.

Currently, in its final year of funding, the MaTTS Project is hosting the webinar series, Connecting Ocean Exploration and Technologies to Your Classroom. This series of three webinars, will focus on how to incorporate marine technology builds, ocean exploration expeditions, and live content into classroom curricula. 

The Marine Technologies for Teachers and Students (MaTTS) Project was supported by the National Science Foundation’s Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program.