Engaging students with hands-on, ocean-based experiences that enhance skills by connecting knowledge to real-world situations.

Experiential Learning that Enhances Student Skills

NESS’s accredited, nationally recognized, and award-winning marine sciences and ocean-based STEM curriculum provides experiential learning opportunities for students in unique and highly engaging ways through innovative, real-world experiences that are aligned with Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and Ocean Literacy Principles. The NGSS and Ocean Literacy Principles encourage students to understand learning as an interrelated world of inquiry and phenomena rather than a static set of disciplines and facts.

By demonstrating the practical application of academic subjects, NESS programs make school relevant.

A student who wonders why they need to learn to calculate the area of a triangle suddenly gets it when the triangle is their wind-harnessing sail.

A student who has been told that environmental conservation is a good thing fully gets it when they observe first-hand the man-made debris clogging the salt marsh they are kayaking through while collecting marine biology samples.

Buoyancy and propulsion become important and fun subjects when you are operating your own remote-controlled submersible.

Students explore, discover, design, engineer, and investigate their world with NESS programs. They learn it by doing it.

Our Approach to Education

The NESS education model also employs a comprehensive, double-helix approach. As illustrated by the image on this page, this approach integrates academic engagement and social-emotional growth in an enriching learning environment that promotes academic achievement and enhances student development. Active participation, critical thinking, and problem-solving leads to a deeper understanding of the subject matter while having fun in a dynamic, safe, and challenging environment.

Social and Emotional Learning

Social and emotional learning is an integral part of education and human development. SEL is the process through which all learners acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.

Ocean Literacy Principles

Ocean Literacy helps create a student’s understanding of our relationship to the ocean, instilling environmental awareness and stewardship. NESS, and our partner schools, recognize that understanding complex systems like the ocean is enhanced when learners use models and simulations and engage in first-hand experiences, both in the classroom or on the water. By incorporating Ocean Literacy Principles into our learning model, NESS also advances a student’s understanding of science.

Next Generation Science Standards

Next Generation Science Standards are K–12, research-based, science content standards that set the expectations for what students should know and be able to do. The NGSS were developed by states to improve science classroom learning experiences for all students.