Science Held in Outdoor Classroom Continues to Evolve

Over the last decade, Science in the Sun has seen some changes, but the popular St. Petersburg Science Festival School Day remains an annual staple along Bayboro Harbor. It offers hands-on science experiences to thousands of area school children. NOAA remains a proud sponsor and participant. This year we hosted nearly 900 students. We continue to look for ways to offer them the best experience as they explore technology and life, marine, and physical sciences.

The NOAA tent featured our Office of Law Enforcement, swearing in junior agents and showing them confiscated artifacts. Officers stressed the importance of protecting and conserving marine life rather than trying to keep it for themselves. Another popular stop was our NOAA Turtle Hurdle: kids got to "be a turtle" crawling through a large net with an opening at the end to demonstrate how turtles escape nets collecting shrimp. Students also got to see how NOAA meteorologists research and monitor our weather.

Since we started in 2012, we've moved locations and gone virtual during COVID. We focused more specifically on the age of the students we are trying to reach, how to get them to the event, and the quality of the exhibits.

"We knew early on we wanted to offer a school-focused event, said USF Associate Dean of the St. Petersburg Campus and Professor of STEM Education."We create tours giving students the opportunity to experience different types of science offered by local science-minded partner agencies and organizations."

"Our goal is to expose 4th and 5th graders to different types of science while also spending time on a college campus," said Rosengrant. "Hosting the St. Petersburg Science Festival with our Innovation District partners, here at the University of South Florida, gives these students a way to see science and college in their future. By giving each student a Science Festival t-shirt to wear to the event, our generous donor Sea Us Rise creates a feeling of inclusion and excitement from the minute they get off their bus."

At the end of the day students were encouraged to stop by and write on the outdoor chalkboard, highlighting what their "true love of science is." Some wrote they liked to see how different chemicals react with each other, others liked the robotics demonstrations and some enjoyed learning about the human heart. Our hope is that students leave with a greater understanding of how science impacts them every day and consider a science field in the future.