One of SECOORA’s goals is to engage and inform students and the public in ocean observing. Read how SECOORA is achieving this below.
Hosting Interns
Pedro Matos-Llavona from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez speaks about his experience as an intern.
Each year SECOORA coordinates with the IOOS Summer Internship Program to host a NOAA Hollings Undergraduate Scholar or Educational Partnership Program (EPP) Intern at our member institutions. The opportunity provides a hands on experience for students to learn the intricate details of coastal ocean observing systems.
Meet past interns here:
- Summer 2014: Pedro Matos-Llavona (University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez)
- Summer 2015: Michael Kovatch (SUNY Geneseo)
- Summer 2016: Julianna Diehl (Maine Maritime Academy) and Andrew Reid (East Carolina University)
- Summer 2020: Natalie Murphy (Reed College)
Science Festivals
SECOORA teams with members and partners to teach the community about ocean observing systems at various science festivals. AT the 2015 Science Festival in Charleston, SC, children, teens, and families learned about the basic functions of buoys and a variety of sensors. During the 2018 Science Festival in St. Petersburg, FL, GCOOS and SECOORA taught students about the community about navigation, ports, and ocean observing.
Taking Students to the Field
In collaboration with YSI Xylem and University of South Florida Coastal Ocean Monitoring and Prediction System (USF COMPS), we have taught over 200 undergraduate students about the importance of real-time sensors in the field.
Each semester, USF undergraduate science students are given tours of two technologies: a YSI Xylem sonde system and a metrological station. Led by a USF College of Marine Science professor and YSI Xylem representative, students learn how to collect water quality data, use a sonde, explore data trends on the SECOORA data portal and answer questions such as “what is biofouling?” and “why is in-situ monitoring important?”.
