Thank you for your interest in LiMPETS! This is a really exciting time to participate in LiMPETS as the program has undergone some changes to increase the scientific rigor of the program for your students and to improve the quality of the data that they collect. LiMPETS is a competitive program and demand currently exceeds the resources needed to carry out the program. Please ensure that your school, your students, and you fulfill the participation requirements of LiMPETS including:

Age of student participants: 6th grade and up for Sandy Beach Monitoring and 9th grade and up for Rocky Intertidal Monitoring.

Monitoring group size: The maximum number of students that can collected data at one time varies by site (20-30 students). If you have more students, you will need to schedule additional monitoring days or same-day rotations with other projects (e.g. beach clean-up).

Attitudes and abilities of student participants: Your students must behave professionally with the knowledge that they are contributing to a real scientific dataset. Your students must be able to focus on a task for an extended period of time. If you who cannot ensure the proper behavior of their students, we can direct you to more appropriate science education programs.

Chaperone requirements: Minimum 1 chaperone or adult volunteer per 10 students.

Teacher time commitment: Along with monitoring, you will need to dedicate at least three class periods (one training with coordinator, one for you to review the material with your students, and one for data entry) to LiMPETS. In addition to class and field work, plan to spend 2-4 additional hours for communication with Coordinator and data entry checks. All participating teachers are required to take end-of-year survey, which takes about 20-30 minutes.

Scheduling constraints: A full 2 hours per class are needed at the monitoring site and teachers should account for the additional driving time required. Rocky Intertidal programs can only occur at low tide based on site specific requirements. Sandy Beach programs will be scheduled for falling tides.

Data entry: All data must be entered within one month of the monitoring date. If entered by students, you must double check entered data for errors.