1998 Year of the Ocean Marine Education U.S.A.: An Overview 



sunlight, and often in hostile environments prohibitive to their counterparts with which 

 we are familiar in shallower waters?" 



Earth and Space Science. "Even a subject as seemingly remote as the study of asteroids 

 is now being addressed through analysis of deep-sea cores where sediments have revealed 

 the clues to the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago." 



Science and Technology. "Every aspect of technology, including communications, 

 advanced materials, information technology, and sensor design, is critical to ocean 

 sciences, and made even more difficult by the forces of the operating environment. 

 Arguably, in many aspects, deep ocean research is more technologically challenging than 

 studying rocks on Mars." 



History and Nature of Science. "The history of oceanography is one of basic research 

 feeding immediately into societal needs ~ defense and fisheries are the classic examples, 

 but new issues such as coastal hazard mitigation and sustainable development of mineral 

 resources will demand even stronger ties between the social sciences and ocean sciences." 



Textbooks 



None of the major publishers of public school textbooks publishes one on oceanography, 

 marine science, or marine biology for the K-12 portion of formal education. Many publishers 

 have sections of Earth Science textbooks that relate to the oceans. Most are compendia of facts or 

 concepts about the ocean such as tides and plate tectonics, which tend to be complicated. The 

 coverage of other topics in the ocean sciences is sparse. The authors and editors of these volumes 

 appear to have little knowledge about the oceans except what they may have read in a college 

 textbook. They also seem unaware that many children in the United States have been to the 

 ocean often; after all, 50 percent live within 100 miles of the shore. Many children thus have an 

 experiential base to build on. There is a major need for a national conference/workshop to 

 educate the authors and editors of the major textbook publishing companies about the ocean and 

 how this knowledge can be inftised into the K-12 science and social science curriculum. 



Curricula 



While textbooks in marine education are scarce and inadequate for K-12 education, the 

 same cannot be said for available curricula. The Consortium for Ocean Research and Education 

 (CORE) is compiling an inventory of K-12 marine education programs. This is due to be 

 published in 1 998 and will provide much needed information on a national basis. 



Federal agencies, especially Sea Grant and the National Science Foundation (NSF), have 

 funded the development of marine science curricula for K-12 use. Some of these have been in 

 use for several years by many teachers, and have been cited for excellence by various 



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