Boston Harbor Educators Workshop 2023
Dr. Bob Chen
UMass Boston
The Second Annual Stone Living Lab Educators Workshop was held on February, 22, 2023. The goals for the Workshop were to 1) share programs and effective practices, 2) strengthen connections among existing programs, 3) innovate new programs in and around Boston Harbor, and 4) optimize collective impact.
The first half of the workshop was held virtually with over 30 participants, 15 lightning talks followed by breakout group discussions in the Morning Organized in three sessions: Session I: Research and Education; Session II: Art and Science; Session III: Community Educational Programming. You can view all of the lightning talks here!
The second half of the workshop was held in person at the Boston Winery with 10 participants engaged in
- Increasing Diversity in Your Programs
- Achieving Coastal Resilience Together
- Developing New Collaborations.
Presenters and participants shared successful strategies to diversity educational programs and make them more inclusive, mapped the groups’ activities in and around Boston Harbor, and then created individual Logic Models as a means to create new collaborations and action plans. Each participant received feedback through a rapid “speed dating” activity to form a robust plan.
Collaborative activities developed included a community science project to measure stormwater through a watershed and impacts on the Harbor; family kayaking in Fort Point Channel; engaging people of color in Boston Harbor educational activities; using underwater technology to expose the public to underwater ecosystems and resources; and developing a set of exhibits of Stone Living Lab science projects.
We heard great feedback from participants after the event: unanimously, everyone met someone new and the vast majority of participants found the morning and afternoon sessions effective and useful. Here’s what we heard from some of our participants:
“Short, sweet and structured was very nice.”
“Good overall format – bucket loads of educational subject matter.”
“Great job in continuing to share wonderful collaborative projects with the community and being willing to partner!”
“I loved the venue and time to collectively work (or play games as it were) the mapping connections was really interesting- yes we are all connected!”
You can find downloadable resources from the event here, and stay tuned for next year’s session in February 2024!
