Students will encounter a simulated marine storm crisis, analyze real ecosystem disturbance data, and refine focused, investigable research questions connected to storm impacts, ecosystem resilience, genetics, and SeaPerch ROV storm response design.

Students will design a rigorous, evidence-based methodology to investigate storm impacts and mitigation strategies in marine ecosystems, ensuring their approach aligns with their research question, NGSS life science competencies, and SeaPerch storm-response applications before collecting any data.

Students will systematically collect abiotic, biotic, genetic case, and ROV performance data aligned to their storm impact or mitigation research questions. They will document conditions, anomalies, and procedural fidelity in their Marine Storm Investigation Field Notebooks and digital data folders, conduct mid-collection quality checks, and refine procedures to ensure their evidence base is strong enough for meaningful analysis in the next phase.

Students will transform raw marine storm investigation data into meaningful interpretations by constructing visualizations, identifying patterns and anomalies, debating alternative explanations, and evaluating whether their evidence supports, contradicts, or complicates their original hypotheses about ecosystem resilience and storm response technologies.

Students will synthesize their marine storm investigations by writing evidence-based conclusions, explicitly acknowledging limitations, generating new research questions, and presenting their SeaPerch-supported findings to an authentic audience at the Storm Response Symposium.