Upcoming Blue Economy Pathways Educator Events
Our target audience for all educator events is high school teachers, counselors, administrators, and career coaches, but we accept educators from other levels space-permitting.
Annual Summer Blue Economy Coastal Crawl—June 10 - 13, 2024—event now full!
Each summer, GenSea hosts a three-day professional development event to expose high school-level educators to STEM career paths in the blue economy. Attendees earn CEUs while visiting university, government, and industry labs and facilities and enjoying hands-on STEM activities led by university scientists. Housing, transportation, and a monetary award is provided for the 20 teachers chosen for this experience.
Every day of the event has a different location and focus:
Ocean Springs & Pascagoula (Jackson County): Marine Science Research, Informal Science Education, Shipbuilding
Stennis Space Center (Hancock County): Government/Military Science Careers
Long Beach & Gulfport (Harrison County): Ocean Engineering, Hydrography, & Logistics
Hear what teachers have to say!
“The GenSea 3-day teacher workshop was awesome! We visited so many places and got to learn about many job opportunities, including educational requirements, that we can take to our classrooms and share with our students to help guide them as they think about their futures.”
“This was amazing and one of the most beneficial teacher workshops I’ve ever attended. There is not one thing I learned that I cannot incorporate with my lessons. We have an amazing blue economy in our back yard and these local students and beyond need to know what all it offers other than just white sandy beaches.”
“My expectations were exceeded for this training. I appreciate the access that was granted to the teacher participants. We enjoyed learning about and meeting professionals who expressed interest in actually helping us connect our students to jobs. We felt like VIPs the entire three days, and that was extremely rewarding.”
“It's such a great opportunity to get CEUs and learn about different topics without sitting in a singular classroom for 9 hours. I have already spoken highly to other teachers in my hallway and my principal about this trip, and the feedback has been nothing short of excitement and a desire to get a similar experience.”
Read more about teacher responses to the program here.
WLOX news reports on the program in its second day at USM’s Gulf Coast Research Lab in Ocean Springs.
