California has a variety of high quality ocean education programs which serve the general public. For instance, such world renowned facilities as the Steinhart Aquarium at the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, and Stephen Birch Aquarium-Museum at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego, offer excellent educational opportunities through lecture series, laboratory seminars, hands-on activities, traveling displays and programs, and field trips. Other educational programs geared to the general public include a variety of government and non-profit ocean education programs including Adopt-A-Beach and the CoastWeeks program run by the California Coastal Commission, which provide education opportunities while helping to keep trash and debris off California beaches.
Ocean education programs are also offered at many local, State, and federal parks, reserves, refuges, and sanctuaries throughout California, such as through the California State Park System. One of the nation's leading providers of outdoor recreation programming, State Park System educational opportunities range from daytime and overnight school-sponsored field trips to Junior Lifeguard training and environmental living programs. Each year schools throughout California use state parks as natural and cultural history learning centers for hundreds of thousands of school children. Over 1.3 million hours of annual formal instruction occur in state parks from the North Coast Redwoods to Old Town San Diego.
The California Department of Education (CDE) maintains an Environmental Education Office for K-12 programs as required by the California Education Code (Section 8721). This office develops and disseminates information about educational opportunities specifically related to the conservation, interpretation and use of natural resources within the State of California, as well as administers the Environmental Education Grant Program funded by the Environmental License Plate Fund. This program has resulted in numerous resources for K-12 educators including model curricula, professional development, student action projects, educational resource manuals, and the California Environmental Education Interagency Network.
Specifically, ocean science is now a component of the recently revised "California Science Framework of K-12" curriculum. Topics in ocean education have proven to be engaging for students that otherwise show little or no interest in traditional science subjects, and the curriculum offers unique opportunities to use the students' new interests for improving skills in math, reading, writing, and social science. CDE's Science and Environmental Education Unit has also produced environmental education compendia in cooperation with the California Resources Agency, the California Environmental Protection Agency, and other agencies. The six compendia cover water resources, energy resources, integrated waste management, human communities, air quality, and natural communities. The natural communities compendium includes programs in the ocean sciences.
This file last modified on: Tuesday, January 24, 2006.