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SWMEA Officers

  

President
 Michelle Gresham
The Forum Shops/
The Atlantis Aquarium

Membership
Position currently available. If interested, please contact Michelle Gresham.

Chapter Rep
Diane Sweeney
Dolphin Quest

Treasurer
Lori Ann Palisi
Six Flags Marine World

Newsletter
Print Editors
Debbie Canestrelli
The Forum Shops/
The Atlantis Aquarium

Steven Schenk
Shark Reef, Mandalay Bay

On-line Editor
Kellie Korhonen
 Dolphin Quest
 

 From the President

 Dear SWMEA Members:

 Like any excellent, worthwhile organization, SWMEA has evolved, and continues to change to meet the needs of its members. We have created this organization from the love we all share for water. Whether it is salt water, fresh water, or brackish water, we all have found ourselves immersed figuratively or literally into its wonder. This fall the board members are going to meet and discuss SWMEA’s long term goals. It continues to be a challenge to fulfill the insurgent need to provide ample opportunities for educators to access educational materials and experiences that relate to the required curriculum set forth by local or national standards. It is equally difficult for facilities to offer accessible, science driven education for students, teachers, and the public in the quantity needed in order to help improve science education. In SWMEA’s long range planning meeting we hope to coordinate these efforts and offer an even greater resource to educators.

Our topics will include:
  • Define our membership base – what are their needs?
  • What themes should be used to enhance the newsletters' worth and relation to local and national education standards?
  • What can we do as a chapter organization to increase aquatic/marine education in our region?
  • What topics for future seminars should be addressed?
  • How do we get our members more actively involved?
  • What improvements can be made to keep up with our increasingly electronic world?
  • How can we better define the role of our state representatives for the chapter?
  • Define and add an official SWMEA scholarship program.
  • What other organizations or educators could we add to our membership, to add to our science based resources?

Do you have suggestions or ideas to add to this list? I would love to hear from you. For those of you who have just joined our membership, you may have new light to shed. For those of us who have been with SWMEA for a while, is there anything you always wished we would do? Whether you bring your suggestions to the meeting yourself, or send them in anonymously, please let us know how we can make SWMEA evolve to be even greater!!

Best Wishes From Me and the Fishes,

Michelle Gresham
Mgresham@Simon.com
 

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