Sitka Whalefest Scientist in Residency Fellowship

Sitka Sound Science Center Inc, Sitka AK

Investigators

Abstract

In collaboration with the Center for Ocean Science Education Excellence (COSEE) Alaska, Sitka Whalefest, will bring four nationally renowned marine scientists to Sitka, Alaska each year for one-month fellowships. The proposed Scientists in Residency Fellowship (SIRF) will create outreach and educational programs for the students of Mt. Edgecumbe High School, a state-run boarding school whose student body is 90 percent Native Alaskan, and for the K-12 students of Sitka School District, which is 33 percent Alaska Native as well as for the local community. It builds on an already successful program, Scientists in the Schools, developed by Sitka Whalefest, which coordinates visiting scientists? presentations and hands-on activities with the school curriculum and extensive advance preparation with science teachers in K-12 classrooms. As proposed, each SIRF will provide individual scientists a month-long period in a unique setting to think creatively and to work on broader scientific ideas, such as completing data analysis, writing up research results, thinking about new research questions, and about how their work can be integrated into other scientific work. It will also provide occasions for exchanges between practitioners of Western science and Indigenous knowledge. The Fellows will give school and community presentations to improve ocean literacy for coastal subarctic and arctic residents, communicate their research to the public, attempt to interest students in scientific careers, update science teachers on new scientific theories and techniques and cultivate cross-cultural exchange of observations of the marine ecosystem.