About

The Ocean STEAM Powered (O-STEAM) Fellowship is a free, one-week residential program for Massachusetts high school sophomores and juniors, run by WHOI Sea Grant at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod. All costs — housing on the Sea Education Association campus, meals, and travel to and from Woods Hole — are fully covered. In 2026, the program is running two separate week-long sessions for the first time.

Fellows spend the week working alongside WHOI researchers and STEAM professionals on hands-on ocean science activities: building and testing their own underwater hydrophones by kayak, analyzing dolphin vocalizations, participating in shipboard oceanographic sampling aboard a research vessel, constructing and deploying ocean drifters that track Cape Cod Bay circulation, and going on a whale watch expedition. A communications component teaches fellows to share their science with their communities. The program runs in two gender-based cohorts and is open to students of all backgrounds and experience levels — no prior science experience is required, only genuine curiosity and a recommendation letter from a non-relative adult. Applications typically open in January; the 2026 recommendation deadline was March 20.

For a Massachusetts sophomore or junior with interest in ocean science, marine biology, or environmental careers, O-STEAM is one of the most distinctive free residential opportunities in New England — set at one of the world's leading oceanographic research institutions.