Drs. Jan Hodder and Alan Shanks have received an additional three years of support from the NSF GK-12 Program which provides funding for nine graduate student fellowships ($30,000 per year), tuition, and student health insurance for Ph.D. or MS students planning to work at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology.

The GK-12 Fellowship Requirements:
For their fellowship, students will participate in an innovative education program in which they spend 15 hours per week helping to present the MARE aquatic science curriculum to elementary school students in Coos County (the schools closest to the OIMB campus).

The fellows work in the classrooms with the elementary school teachers presenting the MARE curriculum to kindergarten through sixth grade students. Training in classroom management, teaching techniques, and the MARE curriculum occurs during summer term and in meetings throughout the year.

These fellowships are not for education majors, but for marine biology graduate students who will also gain training and experience teaching and interpreting their science to teachers and young students.

Graduate Work at OIMB for the GK-12 Fellows:
For 15 hours per week the fellows work on the GK-12 project, but the rest of the week they are typical OIMB marine biology graduate students and pursue their research and thesis projects.

The fellows can work in any of the labs at OIMB. Descriptions of the research pursued by OIMB faculty are available on the OIMB web site. We are looking for students with the potential to be excellent graduate students, who mesh well with the labs at OIMB, and who are able to work well with elementary school children and their teachers.

How to apply for the GK-12 Fellowships:
Note on your application to the University of Oregon Department of Biology that you are interested in being considered for the GK-12 Fellowship and explain in your application why you have this interest.

We encourage you to contact Dr. Alan Shanks for more information about the GK-12 fellowships and the OIMB faculty whose research you find interesting. Applications to graduate school can be obtained from the UO Department of Biology web site. We will begin considering applications on 15 December, but applications will continue to be reviewed until we have filled the positions.