World Ocean Project World Ocean Project

Congrats! New Innovative Solutions Grants+ awardees announced

For over 18 years, The Ocean Project has been advancing conservation in partnership with zoos, aquariums, museums, and other visitor-serving organizations around the country and the world. We’ve provided strategic resources and tools to help our network of partners effectively engage visitors, both onsite and online so that together we can solve issues in our backyards and around our blue planet. Thank you to our partner aquariums and zoos for all you are doing to involve your visitors and the public in conservation awareness and action! Together, we are making a real difference, as the movement is continues to gain traction. A few years ago – with great thanks to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – we launched an Innovative Solutions Grants+ Program (ISG+) to test different ways to engage aquarium and zoo visitors. ISG+ has focused especially on reaching teens and minorities, empowering them to help with solutions to ocean and climate issues. Through this program, we award grants to innovative zoo and aquarium leaders; the “+” in ISG+ refers to pro-bono strategic communications coaching we provide throughout the grant period and the catalyzing work we do to enhance peer-to-peer sharing. ISG+ is helping to accelerate individual and societal actions, with lessons learned benefiting the aquarium and zoo community as a whole. Thank you to all who applied for a grant this year. This is the third year of ISG+, and each time we receive stronger proposals from zoos and aquariums around the country. It’s not easy for our Advisory Panel to select the winners. Ideally, we’d fund many more of your excellent proposals, and we’re trying to raise the funding to expand this program (see below).   We are pleased to announce the following ISG+ recipients for 2015-2016 support: Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum: Awarded $20,000 to engage university students in Tasting Sustainability, a community-based conservation initiative to increase awareness of seafood sustainability and decrease consumption of unsustainably caught or farmed seafood. Working with Tucson-based group, Lead Local, activities will engage the community, as well as enhance opportunities on the Museum grounds for visitors to help with seafood-related solutions. National Aquarium: Awarded $25,000 for a project that engages the Hispanic community in a small Baltimore watershed. Through on-the-ground education and leadership training, they will create a network of community members who will spread plastic pollution and marine debris prevention messaging through their neighborhoods and networks. This project will also connect to the Aquarium’s Living Seashore exhibit, which features five Shore Heroes – individuals and groups who have taken action to protect aquatic resources. They plan to develop a sixth Shore Hero, their first with an urban focus, who will make clear the connection between urban waters and the ocean, and as well as set an example for plastic pollution and marine debris prevention. Saint Louis Zoo: Awarded $15,000 to launch a project directed predominantly by teen volunteers via social media in high school peer networks and with Zoo visitors to tackle the growing issue of plastic pollution and marine debris (100 billion plastic bags are used annually in the United States, with less than 1% recycled). To address these issues in a relevant, actionable manner, staff and Zoo teens will develop a project to reduce plastic bags at Zoo retail locations, within teen volunteer peer networks, and among Zoo visitors. This project has the potential to impact the local community and beyond. Teens at Woodland Park Zoo Woodland Park Zoo: Awarded a second year of funding, at $30,000 to expand their leadership role with Seattle Youth Climate Action Network (CAN). CAN was established with ISG+ support in 2014 as an evolution of Woodland Park Zoo, Seattle Aquarium and Pacific Science Center youth programs. Through collective action, these organizations aim engage local teens in effective climate change leadership opportunities. Achieving their vision for Seattle Youth CAN as a replicable model depends upon their ability to continue to integrate new voices, relationships and resources. In 2015-2016, they plan to build upon the existing structure, by expanding the Network and its efficacy through various activities. Congratulations to the grantees! With all our partners, The Ocean Project looks forward to working with you in 2016 and beyond, to help effectively engage your visitors for conservation outcomes and impact. This round of support is the third year of a three-year grant from NOAA. In total, with NOAA funding, we have provided approximately $260,000 to 10 AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums. We're seeking partners to continue to expand this program for aquariums and zoos. We’re hoping to secure additional support in 2016 from NOAA, and/or other funding sources. The Ocean Project is also looking to partner with key aquariums and zoos to target joint fundraising opportunities through collaborative grant applications. If interested, please contact us!

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ISG+ Final Report: What we learned at the Oregon Coast Aquarium

This guest post by Teresa Mealy of Oregon Coast Aquarium is the final update on their Innovative Solutions Grants+ project, which put teens in the driver's seat of a peer-targeted conservation campaign! Thank you and congrats to Teresa, Kerry Carlin-Morgan, and everyone at the Aquarium for your great work. Letting youth lead the way  The Oregon Coast Aquarium, with generous support from The Ocean Project, endeavored to understand how to connect teens to ocean issues and then propel them to action. The Aquarium selected four highly motivated Youth Volunteers to spearhead the project and, ultimately, devise a social marketing campaign that would connect local teens with community action. Throughout 2014 and into 2015, these youth, who called themselves the MOANA Group (Making Ocean Acidification Nationally Aware), researched, studied and shared the science of ocean acidification. They examined ocean acidification through the lens of community based social marketing, identified specific actions that local teens could do on their own to positively impact the marine ecosystem, and then looked to the opportunities available in classroom visits and social media. Taking the lead, they created #Unplug4OA to see if the could engage and inspire their peers. Over 750 students have heard their call, and the movement is just getting started! Advice for similar projects Here are a few key takeaways for other aquariums and zoos that might be considering something similar: Focus on action: A direct call to action proved very impactful when engaging a teen audience, especially when tied to a moderate introduction to the science. Too much science and issue information tended to be overwhelming, bogging down the presentation and taking the focus away from action. Youth are awesome: Youth volunteers who were already invested in the Aquarium’s mission provided a great resource, as that allows you to jump ahead and focus on empowering them to create a campaign that will engage their peers. Moreover, their peers were impressed to find out that high school students who volunteer at the Aquarium are confident in leadership roles and empowered to teach about ocean issues. Give youth a chance: Giving teens control of the design and implementation of a project can be risky (and intimidating) but is well worth it. Teens feel not only empowered, but take ownership of the project and are highly invested in its success. Read on for more details on this innovative project: Dreaming Big Here at the Aquarium, we wanted our youth volunteers to feel empowered to communicate to their peers about ocean acidification. We wanted these teens to be agents of change, and teach local youth about ocean acidification (OA), their connection to OA and its impact on their communities. Most importantly with this project, we wanted to ensure that every teenager the campaign reached recognized in turn that their actions can make a difference to help address OA. To empower these teens to act as confident advocates, we challenged them to spearhead the campaign’s research, creation and implementation. We gave them the freedom to direct the entire creative and design process of this social marketing project. Typically, a campaign like this - from the approach to the ask to the evaluation - would have been carefully crafted by staff for the teens just to implement, so turning control over to the teens from the start was exciting and innovative, yet also risky and somewhat daunting. Turning It Over to the Teens The MOANA Group already had the facts about OA, but we knew that it would take more than that for them to create a campaign, so we contracted with a social marketing consultant to teach them how to design a compelling, action-motivating campaign. Action Research’s President, Jennifer Tabinico, developed a course for the youth volunteers to learn about this specialized marketing process and coached the teens through the extensive process of developing their campaign. The teens polled their peers to understand what actions are feasible for the typical teenager to take to minimize their impact on OA, and what are the barriers and benefits to implementation of each action. The training this grant funded taught the MOANA Group that a key to the community based social marketing framework is that the "asks" must be as directly related to the audience as possible. Their research led the teens to conclude that asking their peers to unplug cell phone chargers, game consuls and other electronics would be the most relatable solution with the greatest potential impact. With a call to action identified, the MOANA Group started working through the creative process to identify engagement opportunities, and develop memorable slogans and reminder devices. They decided the best place to reach their target audience would be through outreach programs that would take them into middle and high school classrooms. The youth volunteers designed a flexible program that could adapt to discussion or presentation style formats, depending on each class’s needs. The teens again took the lead when it came time to implement their ideas. They arranged presentation times and presented portions of, or the entire program, to their peers. To assess their audiences’ prior understanding, they asked them to jot down what they knew about ocean acidification, and what they could do about it. At the end of each program, MOANA Group introduced their "ask" - asking their peers to unplug cell phone chargers, game consuls and other electronics as a step that helps address the issue - and shared their experience developing the campaign. They also called on the audience to spread the campaign’s influence by posting on social media, using #Unplug4OA. Following the program, the student audience was surveyed about what they could recall from the presentation and if they took action. Surveys were collected from the school either two weeks or two months after the presentation. Armed with these results, the MOANA Group was able to assess the impact their campaign made. Changes, challenges and connections The campaign’s target audience was high school students, but an early opportunity arose when a few teachers encouraged the group also to present to their middle school students. This provided an opportunity to broaden the audience, but it did require some changes to the dynamics of the presentation. Middle school students were more interested in participating in the presentation, and more inclined to ask questions than high school students. However when presenting to middle schools, we had to adapt our program to include some basic science concepts which high school students usually understand (E.g. what is pH, production of CO2, etc.). And when surveying students afterward, we found that the high school students were more likely to remember the targeted call to action, whereas the middle school students were more likely to remember general concepts from the presentation, but not the ask. After the first classroom presentations, the MOANA Group also began to see some small changes they would need to make to their campaign's approach. One immediately apparent concern was accessibility to social media. Some schools had firewall systems that blocked students from accessing social media on their phones while on school grounds. They had also assumed most students were using social media, but when the opportunity arose to speak to middle school students, they found a measurable distinction between middle and high school students, with a higher proportion of the latter promoting #Unplug4OA. These challenges proved to be some of the more difficult to overcome in the campaign; but these efforts were worthwhile incorporating social media into the program helped the campaign reach teens who did not see the MOANA Group’s presentation. When youth volunteers were not available to lead presentations, myself and other Aquarium staff filled their role. This provided us another variable to consider while assessing the impact of the campaign. We were a bit surprised that the adult led programs did seem to achieve the same response to calls to action and social media sharing. But we also couldn't help but notice that the youth volunteers engaged their peers in discussions about ocean acidification, their classmates appeared to connect more passionately with the issue. Both the adult and teen presenters proved impactful, but the messages and the ask seemed to resonate more strongly with middle and high school students when their peers presented the issue and campaign. For Aquarium staff, we were very comfortable with the idea of a campaign that would involve our teen volunteers asking others to join in taking action on an issue like OA, as that we'd done before. But it was quite new to hand the reins to the youth volunteers, giving them the leadership over the campaign and have staff play the support role. It also was a switch for the youth volunteers to go from an adult led programs to one they would lead, but with the right tools and time to communicate, they took to the challenge and made us all proud. They exuded enthusiasm and motivation, passion and drive while working on the campaign, but, that said, we learned that we needed to allocate more time for the development and implementation process, which took longer than originally estimated, largely due to conflicting schedules with the youth volunteers’ school and extracurricular activities. Yet even with the constantly changing timeline, the youth volunteers remained positive and committed to the campaign, which was encouraging to all the adults working to support them. These challenges provided lessons for the MOANA Group, and that, coupled with what they created, prepares them for the future. The campaign’s impact: youth are awesome! Despite the challenges and changes, the results gathered showed the campaign made an impact. While we are still sifting though all of the data we collected, our preliminary results shows that the students in the audience have been able to recall many aspects of the presentation. Even weeks later, the majority recalled the topic or theme, citing the impact of ocean acidification on sea life or repeating one of the campaign catch phrases. More impressively: Approximately 50% of the students recalled unplugging electronics as an action they can take to reduce CO2 absorbed by the ocean (and about 35% say that it is an action they now do!). Even more impactful, approximately 40% of students also reported that they shared information they learned from the MOANA Group with their friends or family. And the students’ anecdotes supported their survey responses.   In keeping with the findings and recommendations from the public opinion research by The Ocean Project and others, the focus of the presentation was on the call to action, with just brief background on the science of OA, and this helped shape the results. Most of the survey responses included specific examples of behavior changes, like one student who said her mom unplugged her hair straightener after hearing about the MOANA Group presentation at dinner. The youth volunteers also demonstrated a measurable increase in confidence when talking about ocean acidification with their peers, as well as when asking their peers to change their behavior. One MOANA Group member said, “I've seen the OA swag all over my school and many of my peers have been very willing to learn. Many have told me they have begun unplugging their appliances and chargers.” Another said he felt, “Empower(ed). I also feel special that I can confidently talk about the topic and I have the tools to show others how they can help as well.” Empowerment seemed to echo through their final evaluations, another youth volunteer said, “I feel empowered. I love educating my peers and if I can alter their habits I will do my best to do so. This program has helped me get out of my comfort zone, and I'm very thankful for that.” So Bright, We Need to Wear Shades The Oregon Coast Aquarium is thankful for the opportunity this grant gave the youth volunteers. Thanks to their new found empowerment we already are planning for more projects just around the bend. In addition to continuing the outreach program in the schools, we plan to share our community based social marketing and ocean acidification experiences with other local and regional teen groups, and also are sharing more of our experience with the team from the Woodland Park Zoo as they embark on their own Innovative Solutions+ Grant. We also hope to continue to expand our program to the Hispanic community, another key audience identified in the public opinion research and a demographic which makes up 30% of students in our local high school. With so many future goals, the close of this project feels like we are just wrapping up stage one, and launching into for a bright future.   Photo of Oregon Coast Aquarium

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ISG+ New Project: Florida Aquarium investigates a co-designed ‘ask’ for engagement

This guest post, by VP of Education Debbi Stone at Florida Aquarium is the first in a 3-part series on their Innovative Solutions Grants+ project. The Aquarium's project asks "Can we gain valuable insights about how to engage an underrepresented audience by working together to design the approach?" The Ask As a mission-based institution committed to learning as much as we can about “The Ask,” our shorthand phrase for promoting conservation action to our visitors, we have spent the last several years focusing on questions such as: What individual behaviors actually make a positive difference in ocean conservation? What actually motivates visitors to join us in taking these actions? How do we track the success of our efforts? How do we engage previously underrepresented audiences?   Using resources and insights from The Ocean Project, Frameworks Institute, the National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation (NNOCCI), Climate Interpreter, and more, we have made strides on the above, yet we also recognize that we still have a lot to learn. Through our recently awarded Innovative Solutions Grant, we especially want to learn more about how to answer that last question about engaging underrepresented audiences.   An Underserved/Untargeted Audience The fastest growing population segment in our region is Hispanic. Between the 2000 and 2010 censuses, the Hispanic population in our home county of Hillsborough grew by over 70%. Even with that knowledge, we had not been strategically focusing on how to align our goal of increasing visitor actions via The Ask with engaging the largest growing population with which to work. We hypothesize that if this population continues to grow with such robustness, it represents an audience with which we have a tremendous opportunity to collaborate and affect positive change on a large scale. We were therefore excited to receive awarded the Innovative Solutions Grant to explore deepening our connection with this important audience by working with a prominently Hispanic Title 1 elementary school to create a platform, and answer questions about how best to increase visitor actions.   Why Youth as a Launch Point? As data summarized in The Ocean Project’s Special Youth Report in America, the Ocean, and Climate Change: New Research Insights for Conservation, Awareness, and Action, suggest that youth have a strong influence on household conservation behaviors, our project strives to equip students to be catalysts in their households. As the data further suggest that aquariums are trusted sources of information about ocean issues, we believe that we are in a powerful position to effect positive change. Furthermore, additional research by The Ocean Project and others underscores the way in which those in households where English is the second language also tend to have a strong, but often unmet, interest in conservation issues.   Project Summary Through our Innovative Solutions project, we plan to work with approximately 200 elementary students at a predominantly Hispanic school to help us develop engagement ideas that include family involvement and participation. We are also, thanks to the grant, able to provide materials in Spanish, something that has been a challenge for us in the past. Throughout this school year, we will work with teachers and students to develop projects that directly connect the community to action…or again, what we call The Ask. We will work with grade level teachers to help students at various grade levels create action-based projects that they find meaningful to them and that we think are appropriate for the Aquarium. And the students will be encouraged involve their families along the way. In May, the students and their families will be invited to attend a Family Science Day at The Florida Aquarium, where they will share their ideas with our visitors, and we can all gauge the response.   Reality Check? Are we trying to accomplish too much with this one school? We all - aquarium staff, teachers and students alike - are excited about the idea of working together but are already learning that it can be a challenge to fit a project like this into an increasingly busy school schedule. In our next blog, we’ll share more about barriers we're encountering (and working through) as well as where we are in our efforts and how we are proceeding. We will keep you posted as our work progresses!

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ISG+ New Project: Teens at Riverbanks Zoo and Garden take action “all the way to the ocean”

This guest post, by Director of Education Elizabeth Clemens and Coordinator of ZooTeens and Scout Programs Syndi Castelluccio, from Riverbanks Zoo and Garden is the first in a 3-part series on their Innovative Solutions Grants+ project, which investigates how engaging with teens and receiving incentives can impact zoo guest behavior. Teen S.O.S. The Riverbanks Zoo and Garden began connecting area teenagers to nature and building successful, caring members of the community more than a decade ago. Now with the support from The Ocean Project’s Innovative Solutions Grant+ we have tasked our current teens to take their love of nature one step further, to reach out and take action “all the way to the ocean.” Although not on the coast, Riverbanks Zoo and Garden has a unique setting nestled along the banks of the Saluda River, and a direct connection to the ocean. Over the years Riverbanks teens have felt strongly about the unsightly and potentially dangerous debris left on our very own riverbanks. Regardless of the source it is an ugly problem - in more ways than one! So this year, the teens will attempt to answer the distress call of our oceans through the Teen S.O.S (Stewards of Our Seas) initiative by tackling one of the biggest issues facing our oceans today – marine debris. As part of a yearlong immersive effort, Teen S.O.S will look to enlighten and inspire the teens to not only take action individually, but to become a true motivational force by inspiring the community to take action that will make an impact both locally and globally. Building on their past community actions, the teens will set up “Inspiration Stations” where they can connect with Zoo guests, and engage with them in a behavior change experiment. Setting Sail We began by educating our teens on the issue of Marine debris and provided them opportunities to be actively engaged in reaching a solution. The teens teamed up with the City of Columbia this past fall to mark all the storm drains in the Zoo that lead to local waterways with colorful medallions to educate the public about storm drains and watersheds. Partnering with Keep the Midlands Beautiful, ZooTeens have scheduled a number of local waterway clean ups through the Adopt-A-Waterway program. Joining forces with the Riverbanks Zoo Green Team, teens have been tasked to evaluate and identify at least one action item that would help to reduce our plastic footprint by making a permanent change in the Zoo’s daily operations.   All Aboard Knowing that Columbia takes pride in its state, its parks, rivers, beaches and yes its Zoo, we felt the need inspire everyone to find these treasures beneath all of the trash! The teens are taking an innovative approach to reach the zoo’s one million guests. The group will be crafting “Trash to Treasure” artwork from the items collected during the waterway clean-ups. This art will be displayed in the Zoo as a way to attract the attention of our guests, introduce them to the issue of marine debris and, we hope, remind South Carolinians of their Palmetto pride.   The teens will also create “Inspiration Stations," which will emphasize ways that zoo guests can be part of the solution, and inspire them to make changes in their daily lives to help address the problem of marine debris. Inspiration Stations will be showcased at the community-wide events - Go Green Day, Party for the Planet and World Oceans Day.   Is Knowledge Power? Let the experiment begin! As part of inspiring change and community action, the teens will next test the theory, “Is an individual more likely to use a reusable shopping bag if they are engaged by teen leaders on the problem of marine debris?” This question will be tested using random samples of three test groups: Guests simply visiting the Zoo Guests engaged at an “Inspiration Station” Control group of the general public   As part of this effort, we’ll be giving away reusable bags to guests. Each guest will be asked to sign a pledge that they will take the bag, use it, and complete a survey 1-2 months after receiving the bag. We’ll be looking at whether or not guests that visited the Inspiration Station are more likely than the others to report taking action to reduce their plastic footprint. Stay tuned!

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ISG+ Final Report: What we learned at the New England Aquarium

This guest post by Heather Deschenes of New England Aquarium, the final in a 3-part series on the aquarium's Innovative Solutions Grants+ project, is a look at what the aquarium learned from their efforts. Thank you to Heather and everyone who helped at the aquarium for your hard work! The Ocean Project’s Innovative Solutions grant enabled us to try a different approach to training our teen volunteers to engage various audiences about the steps those audiences might take reduce their fossil fuel use. Our hypothesis was that if the teens were able to convey their knowledge about climate change, then audiences would be more willing to act.  Here's a summary of what we did, including the successes we had, as well as the lessons we learned. Beginning the project Our original vision for the ClimaTeens program was to develop an educational program that aimed to empower teens to stimulate an increase in community dialogue, planning, and action to address the issues of climate change. We aimed to develop the youth participants’ understanding of the science behind and impacts associated with global climate change, and a stronger sense of confidence in sharing this knowledge with peers, adults, and community leaders. Our goal was to create two academic year cohorts of students who would take part in monthly meetings where they would develop their content knowledge on the subject area, have opportunities to practice developing presentations and making connections with other youth audiences in the in the City of Boston and Aquarium visitors. To form the first cohort of ClimaTeens, we recruited those who were already participating in other NEAq youth programs. We assembled a group of 12 who had varying levels of knowledge of climate change science and impacts. We experimented with the idea that, once all were up to speed, the teens could and would engage deeply with a topic as large and potentially scary as climate change. We found that the answer, overwhelmingly, was that they could and they would, even going so far as to talk with EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, as well as Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey, and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh! We set a goal of having the teens develop additional presentations, blog posts and videos that would all encourage a wide audience to join a citywide effort to reduce carbon emissions called Greenovate Boston. We anticipated being able to measure impacts of ClimaTEENS efforts because the Greenovate website was to be enabled with a number of built in evaluative properties. We were really excited about the opportunities presented by the partnership with Greenovate, and the web tools in particular, but as the project progressed, it became apparent that our timelines were not aligned. While Greenovate was making significant progress in developing the City’s Climate Action Plan (CAP), their website plans were much slower to take off. A change of plans By the fall of 2014, we knew we needed to change course, and we decided to put greater emphasis on having the teens presenting directly to aquarium visitors rather than the broader community. We also launched the second academic year cohort of ClimaTeens (retaining five alumni from the first cohort). So in addition to starting the process of training the new cohort, which had grown from 12 – 20 youth, we also started gathering data to support our evaluation strategy through a monthly program called Blue Discovery Family Days (BDFD.)  Each BDFD has a theme (such as Lobsters, Octopus, or Sustainable Seafood) and an array of hands-on activities are set up either inside or outside the aquarium, depending on weather. Teens run most of the stations, with support from adult educators. For a series of fall and winter BDFD events this academic year, the ClimaTeens had a table in the same area as the other activities, but with a climate change-specific activity. The teens used interactives NEAq developed as part of a NOAA-funded climate education grant a few years ago. These activities feature either basic climate science, such as carbon sinks and sources, or human impacts, such as an ‘eco-footprint’ quiz. The teens were encouraged to convey the science and also engage visitors in solutions-oriented conversations, touching on three specific actions the visitors might take (wash laundry in cold water, request a home energy audit, and/or connect with a community-based effort such as Greenovate). After visitors had the opportunity to interact with the teens, an adult educator would ask a random sample of visitors leaving that area if they were willing to complete a short survey on an iPad. The surveys asked some attitudinal questions and also asked visitors to indicate their willingness to take the three possible actions the teens were mentioning. Since NEAq surveys visitors on many subjects, we were already aware that our visitorship is generally interested in and concerned about climate change, but we didn't know if the interactions with the teens would increase a visitor's willingness to take action. Looking at the data While the data we gathered was not statistically significant, it did suggest that interacting with the teens could indeed help expand our visitor's willingness to act. When we compared the responses of those who did interact with the teens ("yes group") and those who did not ("no group"), we couldn't help but notice that those in the "yes group" seemed to be coming into the conversations with a higher level of interest in the issue. A strikingly high 26% of those in the "yes group" reported that they already were involved with a community-based effort such as Greenovate, whereas that number dropped to 8% for those in the "no group." At the same time, we still saw some evidence that interacting with the teens was having an impact. When we compared yes and no group responses on the other two actions - washing clothes in cold water and requesting a home energy audit - approximately equal percentages from each group reported that they were already taking those actions prior to their visit. However, among those who were not already taking those steps prior to their visit, those who interacted with one of the teens did report a notably higher willingness to take these actions in the future. What we still do not know, however, is the extent to which that difference in response was due to the provision of new information about the solution steps, new information about the underlying problem, and/or the personal nature of the interactions. Our "gut sense" would be that the impact we saw was largely attributable to an already interested audience being provided with new information about solution steps they could take by a group of enthusiastic interpreters. But as they say in academia, "more study is needed!" Over the course of our ClimaTeens adventure, we have learned that our teens are capable of understanding large and complex topics with a mixture of wisdom, enthusiasm, and energy that inspires the adults around them.  We also have learned that getting a group of young people around a table to share pizza and ideas can be silly, deep, chaotic, and ultimately incredibly rewarding.  One note of caution for our colleagues in the Aquarium and Zoo community looking into this kind of program, however - the same teens that are deeply engaged leaders in your institution are most likely deeply engaged students, athletes, performers, and leaders in their school and home communities, and they may become overcommitted.  Other lessons learned Coordinating with a community wide effort on a scale like Greenovate can be, despite the best of intentions on both sides, really tough, especially with the limited availability of the teens themselves and just the basic operational differences between organizations We learned the teens didn’t need in-depth training on climate science but rather needed the time to build their confidence in speaking about climate basics. The teens often expressed that building their own social identity was more important that learning the scientific information. Having the teens already invested in our organizational mission was really helpful. For example, our second cohort of teens (formed in fall 2014) has had considerable attrition because many of participants were new to the Aquarium and the expectations on behalf of the program and the teens themselves, were very different.   When asked what lies ahead for ClimaTeens, there are some unknowns (program funding) but there are also some certainties. The youth who continue to participate in the program are really emerging as model ocean stewards, something that is core to our institutional mission and goals. These youth all have some very positive traits in common; they see involvement with ocean-helping activities as crucial part of life, many are actively pursuing schooling that will help them to work in an ocean/environment related career, they are well educated on ocean issues and can speak articulately about the issues, frequently talking with others and sharing their passion to help raise awareness. We are very excited to see what these teens will do next and really appreciate that this grant helped us to empower a group of young people who understand their connections to the ocean and participate as a community of informed citizens who are inspired to change the world.

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ISG+ Final Report: What we learned at the NC Aquariums

This guest post by Windy Arey-Kent of NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores is the final in a 3-part series on NC Aquariums’ Innovative Solutions Grants+ project, aimed at testing different approaches to engaging guests for conservation action at aquariums. This blog post is a look at what NC Aquariums learned as a result of this project. Thank you to Windy and everyone who helped at NC Aquariums for your hard work! The North Carolina Aquariums were awarded a $16,000 Innovative Solutions Grant to see if our visitors would be interested in joining us in the purchase of Renewable Energy Certificate’s (REC’s) to help address the problems of climate change and ocean acidification. We were awarded the grant in December, 2013 and the project was funded through December, 2014. With this support, we were able to implement programs at each of our four sites and take four very different approaches to engaging visitors in this conservation ask during our high visitation months of May-September. My experience working with The Ocean Project was extremely positive from the beginning. Working with the staff, in advance, to research and identify the best ways to approach a project of this scope, with 4 facilities, was extremely useful. I even had issues submitting the grant online, due to my inexperience with some technology formats, and staff at The Ocean Project worked with me directly to answer my questions so that I could successfully complete the application. This process was so beneficial, not only for me, but for my staff and our facility. The lessons learned through this project were significant and pertinent to our departmental goals, plus we had a lot of fun! Why we tried What we learned Our advice to others Why we tried For our aquariums, our interest in doing this stemmed from our mission, which is to inspire appreciation and conservation of NC’s aquatic ecosystems, and also because it fit very nicely with a new strategic initiative at the NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores, where our education department was focusing very intently on visitor’s conservation actions. And on the specific issue of climate change, we were really interested in an opportunity to move our visitors beyond “changing a light bulb" to a more meaningful action around energy choice, and this led us to RECs. According to the EPA, “One of the simplest and most effective ways to reduce your carbon footprint is to purchase REC’s, (which) are critical, effective and valuable instruments for expanding renewable energy in the U.S.” For our visitors, our working assumption, based on research by The Ocean Project and others, was that they'd welcome information about how to be part of the solution, and "go green." So with this effort, here was an opportunity for us to do just that by supporting green power by buying a REC for the amount of energy typically used by a home in one month, while also helping our Aquariums achieve our own green energy goals though a "watt-for-watt" match from our partner, Greenlight Energy. (A secondary goal of the project was for each site to acquire enough REC’s to allow us to each become EPA Green Power Partners by obtaining at least 25% of our energy from renewables.) We wanted to see what would work best, not only in terms of inspiring our visitors to take action, but also in terms of ensuring a positive staff and visitor experience. To do this, we tried different approaches at each site, yet kept a lot of the variables the same, most notably the ‘ask’ of purchasing a REC. What we learned The lessons learned were meaningful and pertinent: we were able to ascertain that our visitors expect and appreciate it when we suggest ways for them to help, and seem most inspired to act on behalf of conservation when we model those behaviors as a staff and facility, and relate the importance of those behaviors back to our animals and our mission. The most straightforward measure was the amount of RECs purchased, and the table below shows our total kWh of green energy purchased, therefore avoiding the equivalent of that energy from traditional sources. While we did not reach our goal of becoming a Green Power Partner with the EPA, we learned a lot about how to go about obtaining that goal for our facilities in the future. NC Aquarium facilities kWh Purchased kWh Matched by Greenlight Energy Total kWh Fort Fisher 76,798 76,798 153,596 Pine Knoll Shores 21,870 21,870 43,740 Roanoke Island 14,731 14,731 29,461 Jennette's Pier 80,601 80,601 161,202 194,000 194,000 387,999* But the more interesting insights came to us when looking at the above together with the results of the visitor surveys we conducted during the three-month trial period. We found that at all sites, visitors were indeed welcoming of suggestions of how to help solve ocean problems, and very interested in the topic of energy choice. The sites surveyed more than 1,100 visitors, with three key findings: 92% agreed (slightly agree to strongly agree) that “learning ways people like me can help conserve the ocean and its animals makes this aquarium a better place to visit” 92% agreed (slightly agree to strongly agree) that “this aquarium is a good source of information for people like me to learn ways to help conserve the ocean and its animals” 83% were interested (somewhat to very interested) in learning about "options for conserving energy or energy choices available to me at my home”   As for the staff’s response to the project, feedback from staff suggested that visitors were unfamiliar and easily confused by the REC concept, leading the Aquariums to conclude that alternate clean energy /energy saving asks should be explored. By comparing and contrasting their experiences, the Aquariums also learned some valuable lessons: When making an active appeal – staff or volunteers asking visitors to consider action through the purchase of RECs – the efforts were much more effective when interpreters used auditorium programs and dive shows to connect the ask with the animals and appeal to widely shared values, such as a belief in American ingenuity and a concern for the future. In contrast, interpreters were far less effective when they tried to intercept visitors outside of these programs and provide more detailed information about clean energy and RECs. "Our visitors expect and appreciate it when we suggest ways for them to help, and seem most inspired to act when we model those behaviors as a staff and facility, and relate the importance of those behaviors back to our animals and our mission." When making a passive appeal – relying on exhibits or displays that did not include staff interpretation – the key appeared to be demonstrating the Aquarium's own commitment to taking action on the issue, as the presence of working wind turbines was cited as the reason why support was so strong at Jennette's Pier. In comparison, similar messaging about the aquarium's interest in the issue had much less impact when combined with a nonfunctioning windmill display. This finding was more of a surprise, as although visitors spent very little time at the exhibits and did not have the benefit of an interpreter's explanation, those who saw the actual wind turbines at Jennette's Pier seemed to know immediately and support the Aquarium's commitment to clean energy. Visitors were inclined to take action then and there, with little evidence that they would follow up and take action later via, for example, a web link. Notably, visitors wanted the action to be simple, with a strong inclination to donate, and a resistance to completing a sign-up form, though the latter may reflect in part some public concern about privacy as well as some visitor confusion around RECs. The project, unfortunately, came to a premature end due to circumstances well beyond our team's control. Even though the overwhelming majority of visitors and staff were strongly supportive, as exemplified in the aforementioned survey data, one influential person from within the small minority of objectors was able to shut the project down. This individual, a writer affiliated with a private foundation that is vocal in its opposition to the scientific consensus on climate change--complained about the project in a blog post that was circulated within conservative circles, and reached state officials who, in turn, asked that the Aquariums end the project after Labor Day. Our advice to others For facilities that are interested in engaging your visitors in conservation “asks” related to energy and energy choice, I have several recommendations for you. Be sure that you have an overall organizational commitment to this objective. While we feel that energy choice is something that everyone should be interested in and knowledgeable about, the conversations around energy choice, like those around climate change, can become politicized. So having organizational ‘buy-in’ to your project is key. Fully investigate and be prepared to showcase your facilities sustainability efforts. Visitors really committed to participating when they saw that the facility was also committed to the cause. Relating your conservation messages and actions back to your facility and your collections is an important and effective method to use to engage visitors in your efforts. Don’t be afraid to take on seemingly “impossible” tasks, jump in and engage your visitors in conversations around ‘difficult’ topics. It is important for us all to gauge our comfort levels and push our staff to figure out the best time and place to have these important and meaningful conversations.

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ISG+ New Project: Climate change action? Seattle youth CAN!

This guest post by Eli Weiss of Woodland Park Zoo is the first in a 3-part series on their Innovative Solutions Grants+ project, exploring how teens in the Seattle area can empower each other and their peers for action on climate change. The Path Forward At the Woodland Park Zoo, we have been working for the past several years to engage our teen volunteers and interns on the issue of climate change. These efforts have ranged from trainings on climate science and interpretation to involvement in our pilot of a variety of on-grounds climate focused activities and games, and have resulted in a group of teens that share a common interest in climate change. What we are still working on is getting our youth to the next stage of engagement, inspiring others to follow their example in taking action. This challenge is at the core of our current project, the Seattle Youth Climate Action Network (Seattle Youth CAN!), a project that we will be undertaking in partnership with the Seattle Aquarium and the Pacific Science Center thanks to support from The Ocean Project's Innovative Solutions Grants+ Program . Over the past couple months I have been meeting with climate leaders in Seattle and have been received with resounding enthusiasm for both supporting Seattle Youth CAN and for exploring new opportunities for our teen participants to engage other youth in community climate action efforts which may align with the city's recently adopted Climate Action Plan. This feedback on the model we have set in motion is encouraging and I am optimistic that when our teens feel connected to local climate efforts and leaders that they will be more engaged in the issues and feel more compelled to want to do something about it.  Seattle Youth CAN! ACTION is the key to change, and through forming Seattle Youth CAN we will train and support youth leaders to deepen their understanding of climate science, feel confident in engaging others in dialogue about climate change, and develop and launch successful climate action campaigns. Over the past year with the latest IPCC report, UN Climate Summits, and the Peoples Climate March, the story has become even clearer. We need to take collective action and the change needs to be BIG and BOLD. Global and local leaders seem to agree that the days of just focusing on personal actions are behind us and this is why we believe our teens need to be engaged in supporting broader efforts and innovative solutions for change. We have designed Seattle Youth CAN with this in mind. Our aim is to train and support teen leaders to develop local campaigns which will engage their peers in measurable climate action. We believe that through creating dialogue and connection to existing community scale efforts and leaders we will help our teens to find their role in the growing movement to take clear action to reduce carbon emissions.  What makes our model unique? A local network. We are bring together teens who have already expressed an interest in climate change and conservation through their involvement in teen programs at three leading informal science institutions in Seattle; Woodland Park Zoo, Seattle Aquarium and Pacific Science Center. Teens will have many touch points throughout the year including collective training, events, opportunities to take action, and a culminating summit at the end of year one. A focus on youth action. Our initial audience for this project are the teen leaders in our existing programs, and then, in turn, their peers in the community. Teens supported by community. Throughout the year teens will be working with local climate action leaders to learn, develop and launch campaigns and connect to city wide efforts. Ultimately our campaign will be designed and carried out by youth leaders in our network, but they will be supported by staff at each institution and our climate action partners in the community.   With this project we are looking to explore if and how connecting youth to existing local climate action efforts enables them to create their own successful campaign and increases their ability to successfully engage their peers in action. In launching Seattle Youth CAN, we are hopeful that we will identify key elements needed to support a youth action network that brings teens and community stake holders together. We believe that if we are successful, this model will become a valuable example for other communities that are looking to engage youth in climate action. Recently, I was asked to lead a workshop on climate action at the Seattle Aquarium for their Youth Ocean Conservation Summit. I asked Xander Barber, of my teen climate leaders, to co-present with me. For us this was a great chance for us to share our Seattle Youth CAN model with a group of youth from around the Puget Sound. Based on the number for attendees that approached Xander and I after our session with interest in the network, I am hopeful that there will be broad support for the network. 2015 will be an exciting year as Seattle Youth CAN develops. We are encouraged by the enthusiasm of our teens that have helped us to build the vision for this project as well as our community partners and look forward to sharing our success with you in the months ahead! -- Eli Weiss, Youth Programs Supervisor at Woodland Park Zoo

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Round 2: Innovative Solutions Grants+ winners announced!

Thank you to our partner organizations for your involvement in advancing aquatic and ocean awareness and conservation! For over 16 years, The Ocean Project has been supporting our partner zoos, aquariums, and museums (ZAMs) and other organizations do more for conservation action with visitors, both onsite and online, by providing strategic resources and tools to more effectively educate and communicate with your visitors for conservation outcomes. Most recently we developed an Innovative Solutions Grants+ Program to help engage visitors with solutions to ocean and climate issues. Thanks to funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), we award grants to innovation leaders (currently $100,000/year for a few zoos and aquariums) that also come with pro bono strategic communications coaching throughout the grant period and technical expertise to catalyze peer-to-peer sharing and learning. The lessons learned benefit the aquarium and zoo community as a whole. Thank you to all who applied for a grant from the Innovative Solutions Grants+ Program. For this second round of support, we had very strong proposals from zoos and aquariums around the country, and our Advisory Panel had a challenging time selecting the winners. We are pleased to announce the following grant recipients: Philadelphia Zoo: Awarded $30,000 to measure the connection between onsite messaging and offsite behavioral change. To quantify the impact of the Zoo's mission-related conservation-education messaging on visitors, and to link Zoo visitors with ocean issues, they will develop a pilot project that will message ocean acidification (OA) at their Coral Reef Tank exhibit in their new KidZooU: The Hamilton Family Children's Zoo & Faris Family Education Center. The Zoo will leverage their partnership with PECO – the energy supplier for the Greater Philadelphia region – and Opower, to measure and compare the energy consumption behavior of Zoo visitors who have been exposed to OA messaging and asked to "save energy to save wildlife" with that of non-Zoo visitors, as well as visitors who have not received Zoo interpretation about OA. Riverbanks Zoo and Garden: Awarded $12,000 to create a year-long immersive program for its ZooTeens. The program, dubbed Teen S.O.S. (Stewards of Our Seas),  will feature three main elements: 1.)Teen Action; 2.) Community Action; and 3.) TeenMD (marine debris), the first in a series of S.O.S. action kits.  Teens will create innovative art from waterway cleanups and engage in peer-to-peer teaching as they weave the topic of marine debris into interactive programming for guests of all ages and inspire action through a teen-developed "Plastic Pledge - Take Back the Bag" campaign. The Florida Aquarium: Awarded $28,400 to work with the entire school community of a local Title 1 elementary school where many children are not getting a lot of hands-on science programming and where approximately 50% of the student population report English as a second language. This project will strive to increase participation of students' families in climate change-related activities and will include development of curricula and related materials in Spanish, that will be shared broadly. Woodland Park Zoo: Awarded $28,000 to engage their community in climate change, sustainability and conservation action by leveraging the collective energy and enthusiasm of their youth participants. Teens will develop their own carbon reduction action campaign that they will participate in and encourage participation in from their peers. Their project will focus on three primary areas:  1) Training: Develop and implement a comprehensive training/workshop for teens on climate science, interpretive practices, and strategies in developing social marketing/action campaigns and projects; 2) Action: Create the Seattle Youth Climate Action Network made up of teens from WPZ, Seattle Aquarium and the Pacific Science Center. Teen leaders from each will develop and implement their own action campaigns/projects; and 3) Communication: Support teen participants through engaging in a collaborative process that enriches teen experiences within each institution while providing opportunities for them to come together to learn and share throughout the year. Congratulations to the winners and The Ocean Project looks forward to working with all our partners in 2015 and beyond, to help communicate strategically for conservation action outcomes and impact. We will be releasing another RFP at some point in 2015 so watch the blog and our website for further information. Image via Shutterstock.

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Application now available for Innovative Solutions Grants+ Program

The application form for the next round of the Innovative Solutions Grants+ Program is now available; check out the RFP page for details and to download the application. The Grants+ opportunity is limited this year to US-based zoos and aquariums only. The deadline to submit your proposal is September 5, 2014. Click here to view the RFP and download the application form. Click here for last year's winners. The Grants+ program is an evolution of The Ocean Project’s efforts to help our partner organizations do more to effectively advance conservation action in measurable ways and create a healthier, more sustainable society. It allows us to invest in supporting innovators in the community by providing not only financial resources, but also free strategic communications services and evaluation help for stronger conservation impact. If you’ve got an innovative project or an idea for a twist on an existing project, program or activity that helps shift the paradigm on communicating to inspire conservation action, we want to hear from you! The Grants+ program was created so we can help you succeed in your role as trusted messengers for conservation solutions to ocean and climate issues.

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RFP for new Innovative Solutions Grants funding posted

We are pleased to share our new RFP for the second round of the Innovative Solutions Grants+ program! Click here to view the RFP, we'll be posting the application form shortly. Proposal deadline is September 5, 2014. With thanks to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for helping us establish our Innovative Solutions Grants+ program, this second round of funding will provide $100,000 for AZA-accredited aquariums and zoos that are based in the US. (We are trying to raise funding to expand this opportunity to all our partner zoos, aquariums, and museums (ZAMs) in all parts of the world, so please let us know if you have any ideas for potential funding sponsors.) The Grants+ program is an evolution of The Ocean Project’s efforts to help our partner ZAMs do more to advance conservation action in measurable ways and create a healthier, more sustainable society. It allows us to invest in supporting innovators in the community by providing not only financial resources, but also free strategic communications services and evaluation help for stronger conservation impact. We’re referring to this program as the Grants+ Program because it involves much more than just financial resources. With each grant, The Ocean Project provides financial resources for our partner aquariums to develop innovative local and regional ocean conservation solutions and stewardship initiatives, specifically targeting youth and minorities. We plan to maximize the benefit of each grant by including strategic communications capacity building opportunities for the awardees, including strategic and technical resources and expertise to more effectively engage their visitors. We will also work with each grantee to help accelerate peer-to-peer learning and widely share resulting new strategies and successes with the wider community, especially our growing partner network of 2,000 ZAMs and other conservation and education organizations in all 50 states and worldwide. You can read here on our blog about what the current three Grants+ awardees — North Carolina Aquariums, New England Aquarium and Oregon Coast Aquarium — are doing to bring about positive change. If you’ve got an innovative project or an idea for a twist on an existing project, program or activity that helps shift the paradigm on communicating to inspire conservation action, we want to hear from you! The Grants+ program was created so we can help you succeed in your role as trusted messengers for conservation solutions to ocean and climate issues.

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