The Ocean Project is currently looking for volunteers who are interested in volunteering to help the ocean. This page gives you an idea about some volunteer opportunities with us, but feel free to suggest other ways you could help out based on your interests, experience, education, or geographic location. We want you to have fun as you work with us!

Of top importance, we hope you will use the available social networking tools and your own successful communications skills to invite others you respect to help us work to protect and conserve our world's ocean.

Help make our social network thrive.

The Ocean Project helps our Partner aquariums, zoos, museums, conservation organizations, schools, and others effectively reach their audiences for personal and societal action by developing inspirational information (such as a daily Seas The Day tip on how to live more sustainably and make a difference for the ocean), tools, and products based on the latest market and public opinion research. Our goal is to bring a message of conservation and inspire conservation action with as many people as possible. Here are a few ways you can help:

1. Join The Ocean Project Facebook Fan Club

You can help by posting important ocean and environment related news, inviting your friends to become a fan, and communicating to other people why it is so important to save the environment and protect our ocean.

2. Become active on The Ocean Project MySpace page.

We need help posting important ocean and environment related news on MySpace. We are specifically looking for somebody who is well versed in MySpace and would like to work on our profile, since we haven't been updating it as much as our Facebook page. Contact us if you are interested in being our point-person to the MySpace community.

3. Follow us on The Ocean Project Twitter Feed.

We want to become more effective at tweeting and know we need more followers to do so. Please follow us and convince others to follow us as well. If you want to become a trusted active tweeter for The Ocean Project, contact us directly.

4. Post an Ocean Picture of the Day.

We are rolling out a new ocean picture sharing service on September 1st — one that will allow anyone on the planet to share a picture that reminds us all to appreciate and conserve the ocean. Each picture can be accompanied by text explaining how the picture motivates them to care about the ocean. Help us by posting your own pictures to get our service started off right.

5. Comment on The Ocean Project Blog posts.

Read the blog and post thoughtful comments to blog postings. Encourage others to comment as well so we can build a community of responsive thinkers who engage in meaningful ocean conversation. A good blog builds a good community.

For more information contact: 

Christine
cwendland [at] theoceanproject.org

Help us build a better visual literacy for the ocean.

The Ocean Project is developing a worldwide mapping and water connectivity effort to help advance watershed and ocean conservation by completely changing how people perceive their sense of place — encouraging them to explore the outdoors and making a stronger connection between where people live and work and the impact on the ocean. To encourage volunteer participation, we provide the necessary technical tutorials and cross-watershed coordination activities.

1. Connect with your local GIS specialist.

We have been working locally to meet people (Geographic Information Systems folk) who collect and maintain data on the streams, rivers, bays, and nearshore ocean associated with our local watershed. The process has been fun and educational and we've been able to incorporate data from our contacts into a new Watershed-to-Ocean initiative in order to visualize the data on a virtual Earth. Our goal is to provide a service to anyone to click on our planet and see how the water in that location drains to the ocean. Take a look for yourself online at theoceanproject.org/mp and consider becoming familiar with those people and organizations in your watershed in order to help us build a better visualization for your local community. Then, help us by sharing those contacts with us so we can help each other better share data with everyone who surfs online.

2. Request our software tools so you can maintain your local data.

We have been working with volunteers in two large watersheds to help us get collected data into the Watershed-to-Ocean We have been working with volunteers in two large watersheds to help us get collected data into the Watershed-to-Ocean initiative's Web service. We have a tool to let you choose a local postal code and track water flow from your neighborhood to the ocean. We need volunteers to read our tutorials, use our tools, and verify the data we have is correct. The skills required are not difficult and we believe any young or young-at-heart person would be well served by going through our process to experience skills that are valuable for their lifetime. If you have a friend or family member who loves to play with computers and has a knack for geography, we'd enjoy his or her help along with your enthusiastic participation. Eventually, we'll have wonderful, verified data for the whole planet that we can all share to watch water moving around the planet on a daily basis and to help motivate positive change in watersheds around the world.

If interested contact:

Bruce
bcampbell [at] theoceanproject.org

Help us with outreach in your community.

1. Distribute our educational materials.

Simple tools like the Seas The Day bookmarks and seafood wallet guides that we provide in bulk have been successful in raising ocean conservation awareness when they get into the hands of lots of caring people. As a volunteer you can help distribute these and related ocean conservation products: hand them out in your community at local festivals, and in libraries, schools and universities, grocery stores, coffee shops, and other places where people congregate to let children and adults know how they can help..

2. Translate our website into other languages.

Many of our Web pages are relevant worldwide, especially those associated with World Oceans Day. We are beginning to translate our site into other languages by using translation tools that are often very successful at quality translation. We need native speakers to review translations and choose between various versions.

3. Encourage organizations to join as a Partner.

Do you know an aquarium, zoo, museum, nature center, school, or another type of educational institution, organization, or agency that shares The Ocean Project's commitment to a better future for our blue planet? If so, and they are not already a Partner, convince them to join our network through our online join form. There is no cost for an organization to join this growing global network.

If interested contact:

Christine
cwendland [at] theoceanproject.org

Help us fundraise.

As a non-profit organization, The Ocean Project needs funds in order to pursue our mission. We pursue funding from a wide range of sources. You can help by pursuing funding on our behalf by talking to those people you know with available funds. We have had success raising funds through grant proposals written with volunteers. If you have strong writing skills, please help develop grant proposals. Or help us get in contact with funding opportunities you think we should pursue.

If interested contact:

Bill
bmott [at] theoceanproject.org