STUDENT DRIFTERS

In collaboration with the Gulf of Maine Lobster Foundation, Student Drifters is as an educational program for formal and informal learning. Educators can address multiple disciplines including Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), and customize their lesson plans with existing resources from simple concepts of latitude and longitude to complex studies of dispersion... The concept of Student Drifters was established in 2004 as a research-based program by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) lab in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. As originally conceived, the program's primary objectives were to engineer and deploy low-cost, hand-built, ocean drifters. These units are used to track currents via satellite telemetry. The data collected contributes to NOAAs Integrated Ocean Observing System and validates numerical models... Students are able to see real-time data from their drifter. We provide educational lesson plans that compliment the hands-on..