About the OceansWide Programs
For the Parents:
There are three qualities that we at Oceanswide, and as parents,
want to instill in our children: curiosity about the natural
world and a better understanding of it; an interest in
protecting that world; and the discipline one learns through
working cooperatively. These qualities will enrich the
lives of the students and equip them with self-confidence
and a sense that they can succeed.
At Oceanswide the medium for achieving these qualities is
the exploration and study of life in the depths of the sea,
using the latest technology and the support of working scientists.
Our goal is to instill these qualities in each student who
participates in our programs. One aspect of this is showing
students how scientists explore and learn about life in the
oceans. The other is to show them how to care for and protect
the oceans.
The Oceanswide team aims at teaching students in Maine to
work together and build their self-confidence as they learn
the skills and discipline of genuine scientific research.
An important goal here is to stimulate young people to see
their potential both as individuals and as integral parts
of a community. We hope that, through the experience of our
program, we will have awakened our students' curiosity and
inspired them to pursue a path of ongoing study, either of
the oceans or other areas of the natural world.
It is our first priority to show students the value of respecting
the oceans. Teaching the importance of teamwork will be emphasized:
students will learn they can rely on their teammates and
perhaps more important, that their teammates can rely on
them.
In the first three classes students learn "Shipboard
Safety, Basic Fire Fighting, and Cold Water Survival Training." These
classes are designed to build confidence individually and
as a team, and they will help ensure their safety at sea.
They are also designed to be enjoyable, to be challenging,
and to boost their desire to participate and learn. All three
classes will also enable the instructors to assess the comfort
and knowledge level of each student. This will allow for
a better understanding of how to tailor the program for each
student. It will also give students some idea of which path
they might choose to follow. Students who might not like
the shipboard aspect of the program could choose instead
the task of researching the team project. Another option
might be working in the audio-visual portion of the project,
which will allow certain students the opportunity to create
a sub-team, responsible for taking charge of the project's
communication between the shipboard activities, the lab,
and the classroom. Other opportunities would include creating
weekly projects and videos, and the year-end project video.
Finally, some students might become interested in annotating
cruise video and classifying the animals seen during the
dive series. By taking charge of these duties they may have
the opportunity of discovering creatures in the deep that
have never been seen or described before.
The team at Oceanswide, staff and instructors, work closely
with educators to safely guide student participants so that
they are comfortable and their teams are successful. Giving
this kind of guidance will allow students to complete the
mission they have chosen for themselves. In our programs
students will see and experience things that many other students
have not seen or experienced until graduate school; then
again, there is a good chance they may see some things no
one has ever seen before.
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Learn how participation in the OceansWide program can benefit:
2008 Summer Camps
Registration is now open for the OceansWide 2008 Summer Camps.
More Info
For more information about OceansWide please email info@oceanswide.org or call 207-563-7774.
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