Nature And Landscape

One Ocean Roadshow: Transforming Ocean Literacy in Hard-to-Reach Communities Across Northern England

Natural marine heritage across northern England is facing multiple urgent threats from pollution, development and our changing climate. Worryingly, many communities in our project catchment, which covers 20% of England’s most deprived areas, are disconnected from their seas and coastline. Capacity for delivering ocean literacy and experiential outdoor learning is also critically low in schools and community organisations. Our vision is to raise ocean literacy and participation in volunteering for 10,000 people across the region. Through 250 co-designed workshops, we’ll introduce schools, youth groups and community organisations to the wonder of the ocean, tailoring content to issues facing communities and protected areas. We’ll build awareness of marine citizen science programmes that upskill people while supporting health and wellbeing through access to blue and green spaces. We envisage transformational change; a region of ocean-literate teachers and young people, plus community-wide behaviour change, driving benefits for people and ocean.