Registration has officially opened for BLOOM Educators, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences' professional development program offering hands-on training for middle and high school teachers.

The free, four-day residential program each August provides participants with continuing education credits, housing, and a take-home kit of field sampling and laboratory equipment. Building off the success of a pilot program last year, participants now also receive instructional materials, including detailed lesson plans so they’re better equipped to put their new knowledge into practice. New for this year, the program is open to teachers from New Hampshire, a first step, the organizers hope, toward increasing ocean literacy across the region.

“If teachers have hands-on experience and can share data they collected in their lessons, they’re able to incorporate that valuable perspective into their teaching,” said Nicole Poulton, senior research scientist and program director. “That helps students think outside the box and better understand the nature of doing science.”

Participants learn the fundamentals of oceanography, engage in hands-on lab activities, and attend science seminars. They also spend a day on the boat collecting data and learning how to use the equipment they receive.

According to Director of Education Aislyn Keyes, the program is unique in that the participants are actually learning ocean science, like an “ocean science summer camp.”

“Teachers participate in the program as if they’re the students,” she said. “That’s the theme in all of our programs. If you come to Bigelow Laboratory, you’re going to be immersed and doing the thing you’re learning about.”

The new curriculum is designed to provide a bridge between experiential and formal education, and the step-by-step lesson plans help teachers recreate the activities in their own classrooms.

During the pilot program last year, funded by Maine Sea Grant, participants were given a stipend to provide feedback on the curriculum. The team is now refining the lesson plans, creating new ones, and building an appendix of “teacher tips” with suggestions for adapting content to different age levels, subjects, and classroom sizes.

“We have been giving teachers all of these materials, but they don’t always have the bandwidth to develop plans to use those materials,” Keyes said. “These lessons are removing that obstacle. We’re doing as much work upfront as we can so teachers have everything they need and feel empowered when they get home.”

This year, the team is also working on a new element in partnership with Yokogawa Fluid Imaging Technologies, which provides instruments for imaging microscopic particles and individual cells. The goal is for teachers to upload the images of plankton they collect during their research cruise to a database they can use during the academic year to teach anything from general data analysis to advanced plankton taxonomy — even if they don’t have access to microscopes.

All of these improvements, including the geographic expansion, are about increasing access to the aquatic sciences.

Like Maine, New Hampshire qualifies as part of the National Science Foundation’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, which aims to increase STEM capacity in places that historically received less research funding.

“We have participants with an ocean view from their classroom, but we have just as many whose schools are surrounded by farmland or mountains,” Poulton said. “Our goal is for everyone to see how the ocean connects to what they’re teaching and know how to apply what they’re learning to any aquatic environment they have access to.”

That’s been the experience for Shannon Gmyrek, a high school science teacher from Maine’s inland Oxford County who participated last summer.

“This program gave me an authentic science experience that I’ve been able to share with my students,” Gmyrek said. “The hands-on training boosted my confidence teaching this material, and my experience personally collecting the data we’re using has improved the learning experience for everyone. I’m so excited to get my students outside to sample when we thaw out!”

Gmyrek’s plans to continue using the lessons in new ways reflects Bigelow Laboratory’s goal in all of its education programs to sustain engagement long after a program is over.

Just last month, for example, a former participant brought her students to the lab for an overnight field trip. Teachers from BLOOM Educators are also the best recruitment tool for the week-long Keller BLOOM Program for high school juniors. And vice versa: a recent participant became a science teacher and joined the program in part because of her experience at the lab as a high schooler almost 15 years ago.

It’s that kind of full-circle moment that inspires Keyes and Poulton to continue improving this longstanding and popular program to make it the best it can be for as many teachers as possible.

Admission to BLOOM Educators is rolling until filled. Interested teachers can sign up to be added to the waitlist to receive information on future workshops and in case last-minute spots open.