GMRI Home Delivery

Our Home Delivery offerings each consist of five 45-minute class periods held at regular times over the course of a week, with the exception of Scientist-To-Go meetups which will be stand-alone, 45-minute sessions featuring GMRI researchers and their work.

Home Delivery sessions require a device and internet connection. We will be using Zoom and Google tools, but may be able to adapt programs to other platforms as needed. Because we know this is a challenge for some students, we also have a small number of offline options. Please reach out to us if you want to explore those.

Scientist To Go Meetups

Our Scientist To Go program allows for students to virtually meet with a wide range of scientists and to learn a little bit more about what they do. These 45 minute sessions include presentations from the scientists and Q&A opportunity for students.

Express interest by emailing Eowyn Scott and we will send you details of each meetup and sign-in information via email.

LabVenture Express

LabVenture Express is a virtual learning experience adapted from our LabVenture program. These three or five day series of lessons, led by our LabVenture Educators, will bring students through the main learning outcomes of the LabVenture experience. While students won’t get to hold a live lobster or use microscopes to study live plankton in our lab, your students will still engage in a rich and authentic exploration of how warming ocean temperatures are changing the Gulf of Maine. The lessons will include a combination of short lectures, class discussions, and student interactions including plankton identification, lobster biology, an introduction to Black Sea Bass, and a deeper dive into the temperature changes seen in the Gulf of Maine. Activities will include online interactives adapted from the lab experience just for Maine’s 5th- and 6th-grade students!

Micro Labs

Micro Labs are one-hour stand-alone lessons, adapted from our LabVenture Program and led by our educators, that focus on one of two critical Gulf of Maine creatures: lobsters or plankton. The lobster lesson focuses on Maine’s iconic crustacean and gives students the opportunity to explore lobster biology, lobster fishing, and how changing ocean temperatures are affecting lobster populations. The plankton lesson is designed as either an educator-led session or a student-led asynchronous experience. Plankton is the base of the Gulf of Maine food web and provides a way to investigate the health of the ecosystem. In this Micro Lab, students will learn how scientists use samples and satellites to study these important species and collect their own data on a sample collected right outside GMRI’s doors.

EcoSystem Observer

Ecosystem Observer is a program designed to get your students outside, whether it's from home or your classroom at school. They'll learn and practice how to make high-quality scientific observations in the outdoors, deepen their background knowledge on a specific autumn topic like leaf-out or squirrel behavior, and use their unique observations to make connections or come up with new questions and hypotheses. Along the way, your students will explore what they are curious about and choose how they want to share their findings. Depending on what students choose to create, they may also have the option to submit their work for publication. If you've participated in Findings from the Field or Nature Notes with your students before, you'll recognize this framework and how we've adapted it to work for students whether they are learning remotely or in the classroom, no matter what their access to the outdoors looks like.

Invasive Plants Ecosystem Investigation

To help you engage students in authentic science outside this fall we have revised Ecosystem Investigation curriculum resources around citizen science projects. The Invasive Plants Ecosystem Investigation will be offered through Home Delivery and has been designed to support students as citizen scientists building interest in a research question and a field site, whether they are participating from school grounds or from home. In this five-day citizen science exploration, students will build the knowledge and skills needed to explore plant species in their area and contribute data to the Maine Natural Areas Program through the iMapinvasives platform.

This opportunity is generously supported by a grant from the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund (MOHF). The MOHF program donates proceeds from instant lottery ticket sales in support of outdoor recreation and natural resource conservation.