Ocean Education: Developing knowledge, caring, and taking action Sharing stories of Resilience and Inspiration in this time of climate and nature emergency

Oceanwise Climate Action

Grant Recipients

Dr. Sandra Scott, Professor of Teaching (EDCP)

Yvonne Dawydiak, Learning Design Manager, Teacher Education

As educators living and working in a coastal community, we must play a key role in building ocean literacy with in-service and pre-service teachers and the wider education community. To that end, we will launch a web series and accompanying open educational resources centered on the Salish Sea. This initiative will build upon and enrich content already shared via a reimagined project website: Intergenerational Landed Learning. This website will be redesigned into a learning hub.

Connecting with our oceans is more crucial today than at any time in our history. Renowned marine scientist Sylvia Earle describes the Ocean as the Blue Heart of the planet. Today, due to environmental devaluing and destruction resulting in climate crisis, the world’s oceans are experiencing ecosystem collapse, biodiversity loss, and mass extinctions. Following the lead of environmental heroes such as Greta Thunberg and Autumn Pelletier, students are calling for action. As botanist and Indigenous scholar Robin Wall Kimmerer writes, “To love a place is not enough. We must find ways to heal it”. One way to begin the process of healing is through an education which shares stories of both the human and non-human world’s lived experience with the Ocean.