UNE’s SPARTACUS GK-12 featured in journal by Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment
UNE’s Systemic PARTnership Aimed at Connecting University and School (SPARTACUS) GK-12 project was featured in an article in the Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment’s EcoSystem Indicator Partnership (ESIP) journal. The article was co-authored by Charles Tilburg, Ph.D., associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and associate professor in the Department of Marine Sciences; Susan Hillman, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Education; Henrietta List, SPARTACUS program manager; and Stephan Zeeman, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Marine Sciences.
A project in the Department of Marine Sciences, SPARTACUS, is funded through a National Science Foundation grant. Led by the three authors of the article, UNE’s SPARTACUS program uses the settings of the Saco River watershed and UNE’s Saco River Coastal Observing System (SaRCOS) to enable graduate fellows to share their roles as scientific investigators of the watershed with area students in grades K-12.
According to the article, the relationship between the graduate fellows and the students provides mutual benefits: “Through the collaboration of Graduate Fellows and Host Teachers, SPARTACUS provides Graduate Fellows with an opportunity to gain an understanding of the educational process, develop communication skills and team building, and appreciate the importance of K-12 outreach as a professional commitment. K-12 students and teachers are given the opportunity to participate in authentic inquiry-based, locally-relevant research [which] engages even reticent science students in active learning.”
In its four years of existence at UNE, SPARTACUS has reached 2,162 K-12 students in Maine and has provided a unique opportunity to 22 graduate students from UNE.