A Phenomenal New Approach to Ocean Education

At The Ocean Agency, we believe the single biggest issue holding back ocean science and conservation is the lack of ocean education. 

When you consider that the ocean is the source of life on the planet and that it’s been proven to impact almost every aspect of our lives — from our wealth and our health to our happiness and our security — it seems surprising there is not more interest in ocean education. Yet nearly a billion kids are growing up without understanding the importance of the ocean and the impact it has on their lives (ocean education is simply not included in school curriculums in about 95% of countries). And like the generations before them, if they don’t live near the shore, they can’t see ocean issues and opportunities firsthand, either. 

As a result, only about 15% of people globally think that the health of the ocean is poor or threatened. It’s no wonder there is such a lack of support for ocean science and conservation.

We’re not the only ones who think ocean education is fundamentally important. Almost all major ocean conservation organizations have tried to expand ocean literacy. However, being effective and successful in ocean education is a notoriously hard thing to do. There is certainly no shortage of freely available teaching resources, but creating the materials is much easier than getting them used in classrooms — especially if teachers didn’t learn about the ocean while they were in school.

We’ve come to the conclusion the best way to be successful in ocean education is to be disruptive and creative.

When we heard about phenomenon-based learning from our partners at the University of California Irvine, we wanted to get involved right away. Phenomenon learning is a new approach to education that’s now being taught in many U.S. states as part of the Next Generation Science Standards. 

How does it work? Students are presented with a ‘natural phenomenon’ (usually in the form of an image or video) that they then have to question, debate, and determine what they are observing in the image. Rather than lecturing, the teacher facilitates the process by guiding students to learn the skills and concepts needed to understand the image. The success of the approach is phenomenal (pun intended) compared to just teaching facts. Studies show that students not only are more likely to retain the knowledge learned, but also to develop the reasoning skills needed to complete the lessons.

Even though phenomenon-based learning is becoming standard in parts of the U.S., there are still only limited resources to support teachers — particularly on oceans. At The Ocean Agency, we have no shortage of ocean imagery, so we teamed up with UC Irvine Science Project, with the generous support of Adobe Stock, and developed an image-based teacher resource platform to put ocean phenomena front and center in this Next Generation approach to education.

It’s not just creativity that’s important – it’s making it appear more relevant to people’s lives. That’s why there is a strong focus directly related to subjects that have high public interest and concern – like climate change. This helps immediately prove the importance of ocean education and provides a gateway to broader interest.

You can help spread the word and broaden ocean education. Please share the Ocean Phenomena Teaching Resources with any teachers you know. (There are about 50 million teachers in the world, so we’re hoping you know a few!)

Still want more? You can also listen to Richard Vevers and Dr. Kelly Le in Adobe's The Creative Educator podcast and check out our Teacher Lesson Plans and Resources we developed with the UCI Science Project.

Top image photos by Single Fin Photo and Hannes Klostermann