Ocean Connectors: Connecting Youth for Conservation
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The mission of The Ocean Foundation is to reverse the trend of destruction to ocean environments around the world. The Ocean Connectors Project seeks to bring meaningful, hands-on marine science learning activities to low-income and minority middle school students in the border region of San Diego, California. This will bring about change in the world by inspiring the students to participate in scientific internships, pursue college, and major in the sciences. Disadvantaged students are empowered through hands-on sea turtle biology lessons, which will positively contribute to long-term sea turtle conservation in addition to student academic achievement. By involving the next generation of youth in marine science, we are helping to create a strong environmental ethic for the future.
About You
About You
First Name
Frances
Last Name
Kinney
About Your Organization
Organization Name
The Ocean Foundation
Organization Website
Organization Phone
202-887-8992
Organization Address
1990 M St. NW Ste. 250 Washington, DC 20036
Organization Country
United States, DC
Country where this project is creating social impact
United States, CA
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
How long has your organization been operating?
More than 5 years
Innovation
Entry Form title
Ocean Connectors: Connecting Youth for Conservation
What change do you want to bring to the world?
The mission of The Ocean Foundation is to reverse the trend of destruction to ocean environments around the world. The Ocean Connectors Project seeks to bring meaningful, hands-on marine science learning activities to low-income and minority middle school students in the border region of San Diego, California. This will bring about change in the world by inspiring the students to participate in scientific internships, pursue college, and major in the sciences. Disadvantaged students are empowered through hands-on sea turtle biology lessons, which will positively contribute to long-term sea turtle conservation in addition to student academic achievement. By involving the next generation of youth in marine science, we are helping to create a strong environmental ethic for the future.
What are the primary activities of your project?
Middle school students will receive class presentations about sea turtle biology from conservation professionals. They will then be introduced to research mentors in Mexico and Costa Rica through Skype video interactions. They will begin gathering data on a simulated turtle nest (a tank filled with sand and ping pong balls), such as humidity, soil moisture, and temperature. The class will communicate with their mentor weekly to discuss the experiment. Later the middle school students will meet the mentors in-person to discuss outcomes. Finally the students will begin a community-service component, attending field trips to perform habitat restoration at degraded wetland sites in San Diego. They will put ecological principles into action, removing litter and planting native flora that is adapted to fit coastal ecosystems and filter aquatic contaminants effectively. Students will learn that planting indigenous plants benefits the hydrology of that area, reducing runoff and pollution, and benefiting San Diego’s sea turtle population. Students will also have access to an online learning center, the Ocean Connectors website.
Students will use technical equipment and perform measurements on sand temperature, composition and humidity, to correlate to sea turtle hatch success. This is an important issue since all species of sea turtles are endangered today and global warming threatens the delicate balance of sand temperature necessary for sea turtles to survive (high temperatures yield female turtles). The information collected by middle school students will serve as the control data compared to the experimental data acquired by the mentors. Data will be examined by scientists of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center. This hands-on science involvement leads to change by inspiring students to apply science for the sake of wildlife conservation.
What is innovative about your initiative? How is it a new contribution to the field?
This project is innovative because it combines science learning techniques with a mentorship program. Middle school students collect data on a simulated sea turtle nest in their class and then discuss their research with college mentors majoring in the sciences and currently researching sea turtles in the field abroad. Students will experience real scientific research firsthand, and gain a sense of empowerment from actively contributing to a real community issue: endangered sea turtles. This program's unique interdisciplinary design uses a charismatic native species to inspire middle school students to study science. Other organizations are working to address the issue of providing meaningful science education in an environmental context, however we have advantages such as research contacts internationally. We are the first to use video and web technology to bring students out into the field for a virtual learning adventure. Students will be working on a real experiment, with their nest data used as the control variable. They will collect nest temperature daily to get a true sense of field research techniques. They will read scientific articles and form hypotheses about how global warming affects sea turtle survival. This project is innovative because it unites service-learning methods (habitat restoration) and science while connecting youth with mentors on a binational scale. This multi-cultural implementation method is exceedingly rare and serves as a replicable model for teaching students that conservation depends on scientific research being collected globally.
What stage is your project in?
Operating for 1‐5 years
Tell us about the community that you engage? eg. economic conditions, political structures, norms and values, demographic trends, history, and experience with engagement efforts.
The target audience for this program is underserved middle school students living in San Diego, California. Students in underserved schools in San Diego tend to be vastly Hispanic and Spanish-speaking (nearly 80% of Ocean Connectors students speak Spanish). The program is offered to schools that would be otherwise unable to provide marine science activities to their students. We have chosen this audience for participation because these schools do not have the resources to provide innovative, meaningful science activities in class. The students are therefore detached from nature and lack an understanding of their own connection to the environment. Ocean Connectors staff members identify low-income, underserved schools, which are indicated by a high percentage of student eligibility for the free or reduced lunch program. Last year, more than 90% of participating students were eligible for the free lunch program at their school. Compared to the CA state average of 51% student eligibility, this reflects that the average family income level of Ocean Connectors students is very low. This program provides rare, interactive educational experiences that low-income students would be otherwise unable to receive. Ocean Connectors activities also have a positive impact on other members of the community including parents, teachers, and volunteers.
We are greatly familiar with this issue, having targeted low-income groups since the program’s inception. We offer our activities completely free-of-charge to over 1,000 youth per year, ensuring that the region’s most disadvantaged youth can receive access to innovative STEM learning methods. Ocean Connectors has developed strong relationships with local school districts and we continue to expand upon these partnerships, leading to increased program demand throughout the region.
Share the story of the founder and what inspired the founder to start this project
The idea for this project formed in 2005 when a young educator named Lindsey Peavey witnessed the need to connect San Diego students with the sea turtle conservation work taking place in their own backyard. She knew that many schools could not afford to offer students diverse educational opportunities including guest speakers and field trips. She also knew that most San Diego residents cannot access the sea turtles in this area, as they do not come ashore to nest in San Diego. Yet Lindsey knew that all students deserve a chance to be inspired by witnessing the practical application of science, and science is the key to protecting sea turtles for future generations. Lindsey envisioned that Ocean Connectors would provide low income students with the means to become informed and active young scientists.
Lindsey was also aware that San Diego County has one of the highest counts of species that appear on the endangered species list in the entire country. This fact, coupled with poor STEM offerings at underserved schools, revealed a clear opportunity to educate local youth about sea turtle conservation. Lindsey worked to unite the efforts of sea turtle scientists, professors, and conservationists throughout the region to benefit local youth and contribute to their overall academic achievement.
Social Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
Please describe how your project has been successful and how that success is measured
Ocean Connectors has successfully reached our target audience of low-income youth each year. Our success is evident through the impact of the program on local youth. Evaluation is a key component of the project, using the following methods:
• Audience size and composition. This determines whether we are meeting our goal of reaching at least ten low-income middle school classes per year in San Diego. Data collection on participant demographics reveals whether we are reaching our target demographic of students with high eligibility for the free lunch program.
• Student pledges. Students will make written pledges to adopt sustainable lifestyle behaviors of their choice, and we will perform a categorization of responses assessment to determine which lifestyle changes seem most attractive to students following program participation. Last year, 45% of students committed to picking up litter daily as a way to prevent marine pollution.
• Implementation evaluations, reflecting on the accuracy of our originally proposed timeline and budget. This allows for ongoing adjustments based on any unforeseen changes and encourages long-term programmatic and planning success.
• Student Pretests and Posttests, which will be completed by students before and after classroom activities. The tests will gauge students’ learned knowledge of marine science as well as reflect on what presentation content was absorbed accurately.
• Program Evaluation Forms will be completed by the teachers of participating classes to measure educational impact. Evaluation Forms will reveal the program’s effectiveness and relevance from the teachers’ perspectives, which will assess the degree to which program topics are relevant to classroom curriculums. This evaluation method allows teachers to make suggestions for future years.
How many people have been impacted by your project?
1,001- 10,000
How many people could be impacted by your project in the next three years?
1,001-10,000
How will your project evolve over the next three years?
In future years of Ocean Connectors we wish to expand to reach new grade levels and to focus on additional species of marine life as a means to inspire the students. We intend to sample additional ocean measurements, such as salinity, pH, and dissolved oxygen level. These factors, in addition to nest temperature, are relevant to sea turtle health and survival. We will evolve the Ocean Connectors program in the next three years to cover a more comprehensive view of the factors, and threats, affecting sea turtle survival. Lastly, we intend to continue to grow our program audience while maintaining the quality of activities overall.
Sustainability
What barriers might hinder the success of your project and how do you plan to overcome them?
Possible barriers for our project include scheduling difficulties, communication, and technical issues. Scheduling with local teachers may be an issue because teachers in California are facing a difficult academic climate for the upcoming school year. With class sizes often exceeding 35 pupils, teachers are struggling to incorporate outside initiatives into their day to day workload. However we will overcome this barrier by offering a program model that easily adapts to existing school schedules, and that meets state learning standards. This will reinforce the teachers’ goals and improve student performance overall.
Communication may be an issue when working with underserved schools in San Diego because a vast percentage of the students are enrolled in the English Language Learner program, and cannot speak English well. We will overcome this issue by producing program worksheets, the website, and other materials in Spanish as well as English.
Technical issues may also occur as a result of using the internet to communicate with mentors in rural, undeveloped areas. We can address this problem in advance by carrying out multiple test-runs of the equipment and ensuring that schools and mentors have up-to-date Skype software.
Tell us about your partnerships
Partnerships are a core component of Ocean Connectors program success. We currently collaborate with the following groups:
- The Science Exchange college internship program
- US Fish & Wildlife Service
- National Marine Fisheries Service
- Chula Vista Nature Center
- Grupo Tortuguero de las Californias, A.C.
- California Native Plant Society
- Constellation Energy
- Qualcomm Inc
- Sempra Energy
- Sea World-Busch Gardens
- Unified Port of San Diego
Current annual budget of project, in US dollars
$50,001‐100,000
Explain your selections
Ocean Connectors maintains a diverse array of funders and supporters, which contributes to project sustainability overall. We have individual relationships with donors that have been supporting Ocean Connectors for several years. The Ocean Foundation provides financial support and oversight. We also partner with outside foundations such as The Qualcomm Foundation and the Sea-World Busch Gardens Conservation Fund. We work with local businesses such as Sempra Energy, and we have maintained a long-term contract with the Unified Port of San Diego since the program's inception. We are supported both logistically and financially by some government agencies, such as the US Fish & Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service.
How do you plan to strengthen your project in the next three years?
In the next three years we will expand our program audience, but we will primarily focus our efforts on improving program activies and quality overall. As mentioned previously, this will include performing additional scientific measurements, including testing pH and dissolved oxygen levels, and connecting this data to sea turtles and other species of sea life. We also aspire to add additional opportunities for middle school students to interact with science professionals, such as through field trips to the National Marine Fisheries Service Sea Turtle Study Site and to the Hubbs-Sea World Research Facility. To accomplish these goals we will need to form new community partnerships while maintaining relations with original program supporters.
Partnerships and Accountability
Please tell us more about how your partnership was formed and how it functions. What specific role does each partner play? What unique resources does each partner bring to the initiative?
The Science Exchange – This program engages college students in scientific internships in the field of sea turtle conservation research. Science Exchange students study abroad over the course of several months and serve as the mentors for middle school pupils. Mentors communicate with our middle schools students over Skype weekly to convey what it’s like to study marine science and perform research in the field.
US Fish & Wildlife Service – This government agency will provide access to wetland sites in San Diego to allow students to perform habitat restoration as a follow-up to their sea turtle research. Fish & Wildlife employees will provide the professional expertise needed to educate students about how native plants benefit coastal hydrology and marine life.
National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) - This government agency provides the core sea turtle scientific data that is shared with both the middle school students and the college mentors. NMFS scientists will also review the nest data collected through the project, and compile this information to be shared at the International Sea Turtle Symposium in 2012.
Chula Vista Nature Center (CVNC) – CVNC is a non-profit organization and living museum located on the shores of south San Diego Bay. Each year Ocean Connectors brings hundreds of low-income students from different San Diego communities to the CVNC to provide personal encounters with green sea turtles and other native wildlife.
Grupo Tortuguero de las Californias, A.C. (GT) – The Grupo Tortuguero is a Mexican non-profit organization that GT provides vital project support through supervision of Mexico-based activities, as well as insight into how the Ocean Connectors program message can be effectively circulated in Mexican communities.
How are you building in accountability for students' successful STEM learning outcomes? Please provide a summary and examples.
We build in accountability for students' successful STEM learning outcomes through pre and post knowledge assessment tests. Student knowledge of marine science and STEM topics is measured at the start of the school year through a pre-test, and then is measured again following program activities to determine how well the program contributed to students' STEM learning outcomes. For example, last year students performed approximately 30% better on knowledge surveys after having participated in the Ocean Connectors class presentation and hands-on activities. One question on the survey asks, "Name one piece of scientific equipment utilized by sea turtle researchers in the field, and explain why this tool is important". Prior to program participation, most students are unable to answer this question and very few can provide a correct answer. Following Ocean Connectors involvement, students have a keen sense of how technology is used to further sea turtle research worldwide today.
Needs
Marketing/Media, Pro-bono help (legal, financial, etc.).
Please use this space to elaborate on your selection above and/or to add needs that may not be listed.
In working with minors, pro-bono legal help is a need that is of particular use to Ocean Connectors.
Offers
Collaboration/Networking, Mentorship.
Please use this space to elaborate on your selection above and/or to add offers that may not be listed.
We would be happy to get other, up-and-coming conservationists or STEM educators involved with the program to provide another valuable form of mentorship within Ocean Connectors.
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