Next Wave
Blue Ocean’s Next Wave is growing to include an international youth education program while continuing with popular efforts in New York to inform and inspire the next generation of ocean champions. For info on our Next Wave work with Atlantis Marine World on Long Island, NY scroll down or follow the Explorer Boat Tours link. (Under LEARN MORE at right)
NEXT WAVE INTERNATIONAL
Inspiring a Love of Nature—in the Next Generation of World Leaders
VISION
Use international schools as the concentrated leverage point for influencing the next generation of world leaders. Instill factual understanding, emotional connection, and strategic respect in highly privileged children who are destined become highly influential adults.
INSPIRING A NEW GENERATION
How can we inspire a love of nature in the next generation of world leaders? Our answer is Blue Ocean Institute’s Next Wave International Youth Education Program.
International schools are a learning ground for the children of overseas business leaders, foreign diplomats, technocrats (United Nations, World Bank) and members of governments. These students are—quite literally—poised to rule the world.
Our Next Wave International program instills an early-life reverence for the finite fragility of forests, water, wildlife, and oceans—in those destined to assume the helm in global business and government leadership.
No one has a greater stake in the future than the next generations who will live it. We aim to help them successfully shoulder the awesome, crucial responsibility of stewarding natural resources and restoring the ocean's living abundance. Meanwhile, they will bring some of what they’ve learned home to their parents.
K-12 EDUCATION AS A CONSERVATION STRATEGY
The program currently focuses on East Asia, influencing young minds in nations with some of the world’s largest remaining forests, biggest fishing fleets and greatest appetites for seafood. Next Wave International is now reaching several thousand of East Asia's future leaders—at a time when their intellectualand ethical frameworks are forming.
WHY INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS?
International schools represent a key, global audience that is hungry for materials such as ours. These K-12, private, English-language schools concentrate a strategic audience—the privileged children of highly influential parents. Each year international schools graduate tens of thousands of culture-bridging, multilingual kids who become dynamic young adults with great potential to energize their communities and shape world opinion and global business strategies.
Globalization of the economy poses challenges, but its flip side, globalization of education, offers spectacular opportunity. Reaching these children is possible today because, at least for the wealthy, the globalization of education is a reality. Like all parents, the affluent want every advantage money can buy for their kids. Unlike most, they have the resources to provide it. This means English-language schooling that in turn opens doors to higher education in the U.S., Europe, Australia and elsewhere. No longer just for the children of western expatriates, international schools exist in every major city. For those who can afford them, they are the schools of choice.
NEXT WAVE INTERNATIONAL COURSE MATERIALS
The Next Wave program empowers educators to teach the value of ocean life plus the interconnectedness of humanity and nature. Dynamic books written for young adults, classroom activity guides (with model unit plans), teacher training, networking and mentoring are key components of our program. Each book focuses on an intriguing ocean creature or ecosystem and helps kids understand the connections between people and ocean inhabitants. Through engaging stories, non-fiction text, comics, scientific illustrations and photos, kids see their role in current environmental problems and are encouraged to get involved and create solutions. The accompanying activity guide for each book supports instruction in reading, writing, social studies and science—and critical thinking about real-world issues.
Our first book, Why I Care About SHARKS, is now being used in more than 50 international schools throughout East Asia. Although designed for middle school, in practice, Next Wave books are often adapted to younger and older students.
Sharks provide a high-interest vehicle for introducing children to ocean life and the cascading effects of overfishing. Why I Care About SHARKS highlights the trade in shark fins and their consumption as soup--a regionally and culturally relevant overfishing example. Kids' attitudes about sharks change when they learn that robust shark populations actually contribute to healthier ecosystems. When children discover that sharks matter, they're motivated to change their values and their personal relationships with the sea, an essential first step on the way to changing the attitudes of family, community and culture. Sharks are a lens we use to show how to create a new relationship with the sea and with nature—one that's durable, and can work for their generation.
Our next book, Why I Care About Coral Reefs, is nearly complete and will be followed by other books for young adults.
PROGRAM LEADERSHIP
Co-authors of Why I Care About SHARKS, Lisa Cook and Joel Simonetti lead our Next Wave International Program. They are professional teachers with 20 years overseas classroom experience. They're an experienced and well-connected team in the international school educators’ global network.
Dr. Carl Safina, Blue Ocean Institute’s founding president, is an award-winning writer and international thought leader in ocean and nature conservation. His knowledge, influence and profile add greater greater reach and dynamism to the Next Wave International Program.
MENTORING, TEACHER TRAINING & RECRUITING
We use our distinctly ocean-flavored books as an opportunity to talk to educators. Our conversations take place one on one during school visits, at teacher professional development conferences and at conferences for high school students where we speak to large audiences. Our materials and training help educators understand the connections between ecosystems and human well-being and show how teachers can use these topics to address the many subjects they're required to teach. Packard Foundation support allows us to make our materials free to schools that accept our teacher training services and our assistance in devising curriculum. We work individually with educators and schools to help them design units about the ocean that meet the particular needs of their grade level and institution.
Joel Simonetti, a language arts and social studies specialist and Lisa Cook, a math and science teacher, also visit schools to provide a variety of services to help educators teach about marine ecosystems. These include curriculum writing, mentoring, visiting author talks, writing workshops for kids, evening programs for the school community and presentations on coral reefs, sharks, ecological history and other ocean-related themes.
Over the course of a 2-3 day workshop Joel and Lisa can help a school develop a flexible, interdisciplinary, fully-resourced, literature-based unit in PYP, MYP, UBD and other curriculum formats to serve the needs of any grade level. If several schools in an area collaborate, workshops can be set up through the East Asian Regional Council of Schools (EARCOS) and other professional development organizations.
NEXT STEPS FOR NEXT WAVE INTERNATIONAL
This year the Next Wave International Program is expanding beyond our current base in East Asia to connect with international schools in Europe and South America. We will also broaden Next Wave teacher training and support, curricula, and online networking. An interactive web section, to be launched this summer, will connect students and teachers worldwide and will serve to share and cross pollinate the innovative activities and ideas from teachers using our materials. This web section will also increase our ability to recruit new educators.
We are developing new course materials about coral reefs, seafood, trash in the ocean, and the sea's changing chemistry. Program expansion beyond East Asia to Europe and Latin America begins this year with the goal of recruiting hundreds more teachers to use Next Wave materials. Simonetti and Cook will speak at several conferences where heads of international schools, board trustees and senior teachers gather to discuss trends in education. Dr. Safina is planning to address these international conferences beginning in 2012 focusing on the role schools can play in helping society construct a new environmental ethic. Other next steps include additional teacher training in East Asia and the Western Pacific and translating course materials into Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian. Next Wave International summer training courses are being planned to provide opportunities for international educators to earn credits to maintain their professional certification while learning how to meaningfully teach about marine ecosystems. We will use Safina’s affiliation with Stony Brook University plus our connections with Cornell University to offer these courses.
BE A PART OF THE WAVE
To find out more about Blue Ocean Institute’s Next Wave International youth education program or to lend your support, please contact Joel Simonetti at jsimonetti@blueocean.org.
Look for Next Wave’s new interactive web section this summer!
NEXT WAVE IN NEW YORK
Through partnerships with other institutions such as Atlantis Marine World Aquarium in Riverhead, New York, we deliver hands-on workshops for students and teachers that promote an understanding of the ocean’s importance to all life on Earth. Workshop materials incorporate the principles of “ocean literacy” to prompt creative writing that inspires ocean conservation.
EXPLORER BOAT TOURS
Blue Ocean partners with Atlantis Marine World Aquarium to deliver educational tours of the Peconic Estuary aboard the aquarium’s Explorer tour boat. Situated on the eastern end of Long Island, the Peconic Estuary is recognized by the United States Environmental Protection Agency as an “Estuary of National Significance.”
Estuaries are places where rivers meet the sea and are considered some of the most productive environments on the Earth. Nearly 80 % of all animals that live in the ocean spend some part of their life in estuaries. Through fun and educational presentations Blue Ocean educators help connect thousands of visitors each year with the beautiful landscapes and animals that make the Peconic Estuary a New York State jewel.
Visit http://www.coexploration.org/oceanliteracy for information on ocean literacy.
