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.
As educators living and working in a coastal community, we must play a key role in building ocean literacy with our students, whether they are younger learners or adults. To that end, this speaker series and accompanying open educational resources are centered on the Salish Sea and will help participants learn about and consider relevant interdisciplinary research and how it is impacting, or might impact, our practice.
Our recent project, Ocean Education: Developing knowledge, caring, and taking action Sharing stories of Resilience and Inspiration in this time of climate and nature emergency is a series of webinars and post-session resources focused on connecting researchers, in-service and pre-service teachers to consider how we can embed research-based stories in our teaching.
Funded by UBC Vancouver’s Edith Lando Virtual Learning Center (ELVLC), the inaugural series took place in Winter and Spring 2022 as hybrid seminars. Details including the webinar recordings and associated resources are available on the ELVLC website (Ocean Education)
Watch for professional quality video interviews with each of our guests – coming soon to the Landed Learning website!