Matthew S. Schneider, a teacher at Hillsboro Middle School, is attending the 25th annual session of the distinguished Maury Project Workshop offered by the U.S. Naval Academy. Matthew is one of 24 teachers from around the country attending the workshop July 8-20.
The Maury Project is designed to give science teachers and science supervisors an in-depth study of various oceanographic and meteorological subjects including waves, tides, density and wind-driven oceanographic circulations and ocean-atmosphere interactions. The workshop equips teachers with training and teaching materials that can be used in their classrooms. They will participate in lectures, tutorials, research cruises, hands-on laboratory exercises and field trips.
This year the program will host teachers from 16 different states around the country, one from Germany, and one from Canada, who is sponsored by the Canadian Meteorology and Oceanography Society.
Dr. David Smith, retired professor and former chairman of the Naval Academy oceanography department, and Wendy Abshire, education director of the American Meteorological Society, will serve as co-directors of the Maury Project Workshop. Speakers featured in the workshop include oceanographers and senior scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the University of Maryland at College Park, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and the United States Navy.
“The Maury Project achieves a special milestone this year, reaching its 25th year as a workshop for teachers on topics in physical oceanography. To put this in perspective, most programs promoting professional teacher development have a lifetime of about three to four years. Due to the generous contribution of its sponsors, the Maury Project has reached approximately 600 teachers directly and perhaps as many as 25,000 teachers indirectly through its innovative peer-training model over the years,” Smith said. “A goal is to train as many teachers as possible including those who are members of groups underrepresented in the sciences and/or teach significant numbers of pre-college students from underrepresented groups.”
The Maury Project Workshop is named in honor of Navy Lt. Matthew Fontaine Maury, who lived from 1806 until 1873 and is considered to be the founder of physical oceanography, and is funded by the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, the Office of Naval Research and the National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration. The workshop is made possible by considerable support from the United States Naval Academy, the American Meteorological Society, and California University of Pennsylvania.
Founded in 1845, the U.S. Naval Academy today is a prestigious four-year service academy that prepares midshipmen morally, mentally and physically to be professional officers in the naval service. More than 4,400 men and women representing every state in the U.S. and several foreign countries make up the student body, known as the Brigade of Midshipmen. U.S. News and World Reports has recognized the Naval Academy as a top five undergraduate engineering school and a top 20 best liberal arts college. Midshipmen learn from military and civilian instructors and participate in intercollegiate varsity sports and extracurricular activities. They also study subjects such as leadership, ethics, small arms, drill, seamanship and navigation, tactics, naval engineering and weapons, cyber security, and military law. Upon graduation, midshipmen earn a Bachelor of Science degree in a choice of 25 different subject majors and go on to serve at least five years of exciting and rewarding service as commissioned officers in the U.S. Navy or U.S. Marine Corps. For more information about the Naval Academy, visit www.usna.edu.
For more information about the Naval Academy’s Oceanography Department, visit www.usna.edu/Oceanography.
Submitted by Jennifer M. Erickson, director of media relations/public affairs, United States Naval Academy.
