While the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted summer internship plans for many university students, Amber Wolffe, an undergraduate student in meteorology and mathematics at Metropolitan State University in Denver (Colorado, USA), overcame these challenges to complete an eight-week Bermuda Program internship with the Bermuda Weather Service (BWS, a section of the Bermuda Airport Authority). Since 1976, the BIOS Bermuda Program has selected a handful of budding scientists each year to receive paid fellowships that allow them to work on specific projects of interest alongside BIOS scientists in both field and laboratory settings.

Source: Ocean Academy Blogger

Some of our achievements in 2012 using ocean science for human good include work to:

In the two-week period from January 21 through February 1, over 1000 students and teachers from 18 different primary schools around the island came to BIOS for the 2013 BIOS Explorer program. This year’s theme, “Expedition Sargasso,” focused on the biology, chemistry, and physics of the Sargasso Sea – the only sea in the world bounded by currents instead of land masses.

At BIOS, we believe that ocean science for human good involves not only research with tangible benefits for communities and the environment, but also education programs that highlight the many ways our lives are connected with the ocean. We view education as a crucial part of ocean science research, helping to translate the work of our faculty into meaningful experiences for visitors, students, teachers, and Bermuda residents.

Back in 2006 when Forrest Williams first arrived at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) as a Waterstart student, he wasn’t sure where the experience would take him. “My science teacher in school referred me to the program…I guess she thought I was a good student,” recalls Forrest.

Girl Power in Science! As part of her NOAA Teacher at Sea experience, Kaitlin Baird (BIOS’s Science in Education Coordinator) compiled a list of women working in diverse aspects of ocean science research and education.

On the first day of the Bermuda half-term school holiday—Monday, October 21, 2019—18 teachers attended a workshop at BIOS entitled “Hurricanes: Data in the Classroom.” The workshop was offered as part of the BIOS Curriculum Enrichment Program, which offers educational support and resources to students and teachers, in an effort to boost the availability of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning experiences in Bermuda. Through a partnership with the Bermuda Union of Teachers, the Curriculum Enrichment Program allows BIOS scientists and educators to share aspects of BIOS’s research for classroom lessons.

In the summer of 1999, in the middle of working toward her master’s degree in zoology at the University of Toronto, Lisa Rodrigues—then 21—returned home to Bermuda. Having heard about BIOS from her advisor, and with an interest in focusing on the island’s marine organisms for her thesis, she applied to and was accepted into the Bermuda Program. Now, as then, the Bermuda Program offers intensive, hands-on summer internships in marine and atmospheric sciences to Bermudian students ages 18 and older.

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.