Outreach and Environmental Programs

As part of Teens4Oceans' mission to help young people become stewards of the ocean, we have developed an outreach program that complements our youth environmental education program. To accomplish the outreach component of our mission we have created a Three-Step Program: Community Learning, Service Learning and Teens4Oceans Projects.  People who join T4O can participate in each of these steps in any order. Community learning (Step I) with T4O will allow our organization to grow as a community and allow members to begin to appreciate the incredible diversity of organisms on this planet and the myriad wonders that exist in our very own back yards. Service learning (Step II) is a vital component of environmental education and conservation.  Becoming a steward for our ocean necessitates that you understand what affects the health and functioning of our watersheds and the ocean, and that you take steps to reduce your impact. Developing a Teens4Oceans project (Step III) is something anyone can do. If you see something in your local environment that needs to be fixed, contact us. We can help offer advice, put you in contact with a scientist who can assist, and find the appropriate local, State, or Federal agency that oversees the issue that you have identified. If Teens4Oceans can participate in your solution, we will!

We believe that part of the human experience should be an understanding of how the world around us works. When we enter an ecosystem we become part of that biological community.  As such, people can perform important community service that benefits both humans and the ecosystem around them.

The Three-Step Program aims to:

• Expose people to the peril that freshwater and marine ecosystems face.
• Involve students in the development of environmental education materials.
• Help school children become philanthropic and develop a feeling of stewardship.
• Offer methods for groups of young people to form T4O chapters and gain meaningful field experiences.
• Engage students to utilize our underwater science nodes to learn about the ocean and appreciate its diversity and wonder.
• Help people realize that citizen science, if done correctly, can support the science community and that user-generated content on the T4O website will serve as the bedrock for expanding the Teen4Oceans' program.
• Allow people to understand that they can have a positive impact and create meaningful change locally, nationally, and globally.

 

Step I: Community Learning - Motivating independent research and learning

For all age groups, students and the public working with T4O will independently research species of organisms and discover how humans affect their health and survival. This will involve independent research and use of our database to organize materials and gather information.

Step II: Service Learning - Making a difference and coming up with solutions.

As T4O students and the public become more aware of the impacts that humans have on freshwater and marine systems, we encourage them to make lifestyle changes and become more involved in local projects. T4O will help identify projects for young people to engage in that are solution-based and can be publically recognized on our website. We will categorize these as the number of completed project grows. Not all environmental problems are solved by direct action. Often educating the public about egregious problems is enough to make change.

Step III:  Teens4Oceans Projects - Working with T4O locally to deploy a solution.

We are looking for students to work with us on field projects and gain hands on experience in the marine environment.