Since 1999 undergraduate and graduate students from around the world have traveled to BIOS each summer to participate in the Microbial Oceanography course. This three-week intensive course is co-taught by Dr. Craig Carlson (University of California, Santa Barbara), Dr. Stephen Giovannoni (Oregon State University), Dr. Craig Nelson (University of Hawaii), Rachel Parsons (BIOS), and Dr. John Heidelberg (University of Southern California), which provides students with a truly multidisciplinary learning experience that taps into the combined expertise of top scientists in their respective fields.  This course has been made possible over the years with funding from BIOS, the National Science Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Agouron Institute.

Dr. Eric Hochberg, one of the CRE course instructors, said, “I have two goals with CRE. The first is to teach the students our most current understanding about how coral reef ecosystems work, from the biology to the chemistry to the physics. The second goal is to give the students practical experience studying real coral reef systems. This means strapping on a SCUBA tank, getting in the water, and making scientifically rigorous observations. This is training that cannot be taught in a classroom.”

Kelly Speare, a 2012 Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) student and 2013 BIOS summer intern, was chosen from a pool of qualified candidates to represent BIOS at the 2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu, HI. This bi-annual meeting is convened by the American Society for Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), The Oceanography Society (TOS), and the American Geophysical Union (AGU), and brings together scientists from around the world to discuss current topics in marine science, technology, and education.

BIOS researchers and their colleagues from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have refined a common survey method to better account for a marine bacterium known as SAR11. Since BIOS adjunct scientist Steven Giovannoni discovered SAR11 in 1990, scientists have found the Sargasso Sea bacterium is ubiquitous in the world’s oceans and accounts for roughly one in every three cells at the ocean’s surface.  These bacteria have power in numbers: each cell contributes to the marine carbon cycle, and with approximately five million bacterial cells inhabiting every tablespoon of seawater, SAR11 is so abundant that its combined weight would outweigh all the fish in the ocean.

For many students, especially during their undergraduate college years, the difference between thinking about potential careers and knowing what career they want to pursue boils down to one thing: experience.

The PartnerRe “Dollars for Hours: Youth & Community in Partnership” program recently celebrated its eighth year of matching students from local schools with local charities to work on a variety of community projects. Under this unique partnership, each participating school receives $30,000 to be put toward classroom upgrades, scholarship funds, IT equipment, and other infrastructure projects and student support programs.

Since the inception of the Bermuda Program in 1976, more than 150 young Bermudians have taken part in the annual summer internship at BIOS, and many apply their experiences toward university studies in science, as well as science-based careers.

Three students who have worked as interns with BIOS microbiologist Rachel Parsons since 2016 will present their research findings this month at the Ocean Sciences meeting in Portland, Oregon.

Twenty-eight teams from 10 Bermuda schools and educational organizations, including two new teams from Bermuda College, will converge on the National Sports Centre on March 25 for the 2018 Marine Advanced Technology in Education (MATE) Bermuda Regional Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Challenge. The program, hosted by BIOS, is part of the Mid-Atlantic Robotics IN Education (MARINE) program, with lead donor support from HSBC.

A new, week-long “Ocean Science Camp” at BIOS will provide an introduction to Bermuda’s marine life while also building a scientific foundation to encourage long-term curiosity about the ocean. Over the course of the week, students will have the opportunity to participate in snorkel training and research-based field trips aboard BIOS vessels to explore mangrove, sea grass, and coral reef environments. In a nod to the collaborative nature of science, students will work as a team on activities and projects that are focused on research being conducted at BIOS.