Huntsman Marine Science Centre

Huntsman Education Project

The Huntsman Education Project (HEP) is designed to assess the impacts of the long term high school education programs offered at the Huntsman campus. Every field season approximately eight to ten high school classes visit the Huntsman for a period of three to seven days to explore the local marine habitats. Within this period of time the students are exposed to several different sessions involving field work, lab work and group work ranging in topics from general identification labs to formal behavioural experiments. The HEP is designed to look at the following three research questions:

• What impacts do the long-term education programs at the Huntsman have on the high school students participating in them?
• Does the students’ experience at the Huntsman have any impact on their post secondary decisions?
• Do the long-term education programs at Huntsman have any impact on the students’ attitudes and interests toward science?

Through an extensive and ongoing literature review it has been found that the high school education programs offered at the Huntsman are unique to informal hands-on science education. The types of programs at Huntsman have rarely been studied to assess the impact they have on the students participating in them. This has left a gap in the informal science education research; therefore assessing these programs is critical to supplementing this research field.

Data is being collected by surveying the students who participate in this research project before they arrive on campus, before they return home, after a period of five months and after a period of two years. The surveys will be analysed individually by coding and categorizing common threads of ideas or statements. The results will then be compared across all four surveys to assess changes in attitudes and interests toward science, what impact the Huntsman education programs had on the participants and if the experience at Huntsman has impacted their decisions for post secondary education.

Other projects

Examining and Extending Teachers' Understanding of Science Studies

• Public Understanding of Science
• Outreach to Teachers

Understanding the Impact of Technology and Online Learning Studies

• CASMI
• Ethnotechnology
• LogiAuteur
• OCOWS: Problem-based Learning Software

What Happens When We Extend Learning Beyond the School Curriculum Studies

• Ethnomathematics
• Huntsman Marine Science Centre
• Outreach to Students
• Science East
• Students Solving Environmental Problems
• Science-in-Action Project
• Research Intensive Student Experiences