September: We just completed building an Augmented Reality Sandbox. Check out this video (by developer Oliver Kreylos) showing how cool it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9JXtTj0mzE Look at additional information and clips in our December post. There are only a handful of these in the country. School classes on the Zephyr field trips can use this sandbox while in […]
With the help of Lowell Instruments (www.lowellinstruments.com) we installed a data buoy about a mile east of Nobska Point in Vineyard Sound. It transmits the following data every half hour: wind speed, highest wind gust, air temperature, barometric pressure and surface water temperature (1 meter depth). One interesting thing we’ve found is that surface water […]
June was an exciting month for field trips, aided by the great weather we’ve had in Woods Hole. Classes from Falmouth’s Lawrence Academy, Oak Ridge School in Sandwich, and the Future Scholars program from Mass General Hospital all came out on Vineyard Sound. Chester High School from Pennsylvania came to Woods Hole for several days […]
Thanks to a grant provided by the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, we will run Science at Sea trips at no charge for Boston city school classes from May 5-8, 2014. The two hour trips will run several times per day aboard Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s research vessel “Tioga”. This series is jointly presented by Zephyr, New […]
What Students and Teachers are Saying…
“What a fabulous program! What a fabulous day!
What a fabulous crew! I’m recommending we
make this a permanent trip, and perhaps even
engineer some experiments we can do, leveraging
our new science lab scheduled to open next year.”
– from a teacher’s email
2014 News:
May: We had a most rewarding and incredible week running Science at Sea cruises out of Boston Harbor. The Richard Lounsbery Foundation (Washington, DC) generously provided a grant to create this free program in which we took inner-city Boston students out to participate in hands-on cruises including viewing live underwater video of benthic habitats, dredging for marine invertebrates, doing a plankton tow, hauling a lobster pot, measuring water quality, discussing marine science, engineering, career paths and much more. The New England Aquarium provided the shore-side facilities and logistics. We used the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s research vessel ‘Tioga’, captained by Ken Houtler, to conduct three cruises a day for the classes. Zephyr educators included Evan Howard, a MIT/WHOI Joint Program Ph.D. candidate, Amy Wright and Dave Bailey. This is a typical class, the King Middle School, posing proudly after their cruise.
April: Our spring season gets underway this month with scientific cruises for the Mass Marine Educators on April 12, and cruises with Our Sisters School of New Bedford, Portsmouth Abbey School, Newton North HS, Cape Cod Academy, and more.
Please also check out our Ocean Scientist Discovery-Driven Apps for visiting schools. See our Ocean Scientist page on this website. Our apps are developed by Aecern, Inc of Falmouth.
For schools visiting the Cape for several days, please consider our partner, Cape Cod Sea Camps for lodging. See www.capecodseacamps.com
March: Congratulations to Virginia Edgcomb, a member of our Advisory Board, who was recently promoted to Associate Scientist with Tenure at WHOI.
ZEF gave marine science and technology presentations to Sandwich middle schools and led a professional development program for teachers who are incorporating salt marsh processes into their curricula to meet the Massachusetts framework guidelines.
February: ZEF personnel are participating as judges in the Falmouth Academy, Falmouth Public Schools, and Martha’s Vineyard Public Schools science fairs.
January: ZEF received funding from the Kelley Foundation (Yarmouth, MA) to give marine science and technology presentations to public schools on the Cape. If you are a public school teacher on Cape Cod, please contact us to arrange for a (free) presentation which includes a hands-on session with some of the marine specimens collected for research in Woods Hole.
For the second year in a row we were fortunate to receive a grant from the National Grid Foundation to support our outreach activities to under-represented students. In April 2013 we brought our boat to New Bedford during school vacation week and ran trips for inner-city kids at no charge. The Ocean Explorium was our shore partner and took care of the logistics of arranging the school visits.
