The educational benefits of an inquiry based scientific collaboration project

First Flight High School became a member of the NOAA Phytoplankton Monitoring Network in 2005. NOAA PMN is a network of dedicated volunteers and scientists that connect across the country with the common interest to study and record the species abundance of phytoplankton that occur in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans as well as the Gulf waters. The students of FFHS, as all the volunteers, engage in hands on research, providing data to NOAA scientists for further analysis. This data is important in studies of species diversity, effects of climate change, and population trends affected by environmental factors. It is also a subject of relevant interest to the families and livelihood of “the backyard” of these students as they are entwined with coastal resources in many aspects of their lives.