Thirteen
middle school, high school, and museum educators from around the
United States recently set sail from Victoria, Canada, for Acapulco,
Mexico, aboard the JOIDES Resolution drillship as participants
in an innovative outreach program called the School
of Rock. With funding from National Science Foundation
Ocean Drilling Program, the Joint
Oceanographic Institutions, Inc. organized the School
of Rock to provide teachers with a seagoing research experience and
to expose them to the activities and scientific results of the
international Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) and its
predecessor, the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP). Teacher-at-sea
programs have, in the past, provided access to oceanographic research
for a small number of educators, but the School of Rock took
advantage of a 16-day break in scientific drilling during which the
JOIDES Resolution could be wholly dedicated to accommodating a
larger group of teachers, who were accompanied during the cruise by
IODP scientists, shipboard laboratory technicians, and drill rig
personnel. The potential impact of such a large teacher-at-sea
program is impressive, with estimates as high as 300,000 for the
number of students who can be reached by the teachers-at-sea and
those they train back at home over a 5 year period. The general
public also stands to gain from the School of Rock owing to
the involvement of museum-based educators whose experiences aboard
ship will inform museum exhibits for years to come.
During
School of Rock, teachers were kept busy with a mixture of classroom
activities, laboratory work, tours of shipboard facilities,
communications with shore, and the usual hubbub of life aboard a
large research vessel. IODP scientists, including two university
professors who sailed with the group, lectured on the scientific
disciplines that motivate ocean drilling and on the key tools used to
study cores and the seafloor. Teachers conducted laboratory
experiments on real seafloor cores and attended demonstrations of
drilling equipment and sophisticated lab instrumentation. Daily
communication links with the shore enabled teachers to keep their
students at home abreast of the expedition’s progress, and the
teachers used their own classroom experience to draft new teaching
materials for students of all ages. As they adjust to being back on
dry land, teachers are organizing workshops for colleagues and using
their new course material in classrooms across the country. Planning
is already underway for a future session of the School of Rock to
bring IODP science into the nation’s classrooms.
