50 States Expedition

The Ocean Doctor’s “50 Years – 50 States – 50 Speeches Expedition” is a one-year journey of outreach, education, and discovery announced on my 50th birthday (October 6, 2008) to bring at no charge a speech about the oceans to schools in all 50 U.S. states plus territories. By its culmination at the end of 2009, I hope to reach more than 100 schools to share firsthand accounts, stories, humor, passion, and important lessons about the oceans and their conservation. But the impact of this expedition goes beyond the schools and students one person can reach personally in one year. Through outreach in the visited communties, engagement of the media, and encouraging the visited schools to connect with each other, I hope that this project can create an enduring wave of renewed interest in the oceans by its next generation of explorers, scientists and stewards. The expedition is a joint project of The Ocean Foundation, the fiscal sponsor, along with 1planet1ocean, and is supported by tax-deductible donations to the “Ocean Doctor’s 50 Years – 50 States – 50 Speeches Expedition Fund” at The Ocean Foundation.

My approach to this project is personal and heartfelt. Recalling my own youth and the powerful impact of the Gemini and Apollo program on myself and fellow students — an age when so many of us wanted to be scientists when we grew up — I hope to stimulate the same sort of awe and wonder, drawing students into ocean issues by inspiring their imagination through the sense of adventure and excitement of manned submarine exploration and research, sharing my firsthand “adventures” as a sub pilot, accompanied by video and still imagery. I will take the students with me on a modern-day journey of discovery, allowing them to relive my own discoveries and learn from my own changes in perspective about what’s ?down there? and what’s at stake, whether it be landing my sub in the middle of the enormous destruction left by a trawler at the bottom of the Bering Sea or finding the most unlikely inhabitants living in the dark and cold depths at 2,000 below and understanding why they?re there.

The presentations will cover the seven essential principles of ocean literacy as defined by the Ocean Literacy Network, including especially the facts that the ocean and humans are inextricably linked and that the ocean is largely unexplored. Each presentation will also include specific advice and contact information for students interested in pursuing marine science careers, and literature and resource materials will be provided to teachers and students.

More than a series of disconnected lectures, we are working to connect the schools I visit through building an online community through existing social media sites, including Facebook, as well as the use of new tools, including ExploreOurOceans.org (currently in beta). Through these sites, students can share their thoughts and perspectives on the oceans, which are bound to be very different from Barrow, Alaska to Meridian, Idaho to Rapid City, South Dakota to the Florida Keys. These sites will also serve as a forum for teachers to connect to share teaching ideas and perspectives. I am recruiting colleagues to volunteer their time to participate in this community for an ?Ask a Marine Biologist? feature where students can get valuable access to ocean experts, including advice about careers. Other planned activities include ocean-related contests (photo/video contests, essay contests, etc.), student-authored articles for the public, etc. Messages in a bottle: I am collecting handwritten notes from students I visit to be put into 50 bottles, one representing each state. These bottles will be presented to the Obama Administration and Members of Congress at the conclusion of the expedition so they can better understand students’ perspectives, interests, concerns and hopes about the oceans.

We are offering each school I visit the opportunity for one or more side events in their community, including small fundraising events. The project is also an opportunity to share information about the oceans well beyond the schools visited. I will be using a variety of social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) along with the OceanDoctor.org blog and 1planet1ocean.org web site and ExpeditionDispatch newsletter to allow visitors to follow the expedition in near-real time. I will be carrying both audio and video recording equipment to interview teachers and students during my journey, which will be incorporated into regular updates from the field via ExpeditionCasts Podcast Series. We may also ?livecast? some of the talks.

The expedition is already attracting media attention with radio/TV appearances made in California and Wisconsin. Following the end of the journey, I will continue to share the experience, includuing what will no doubt be fascinating insights from the thousands of students visited, through speaking engagements, web sites, and possibly a video documentary and book project.