Encounter Edu

Coral Oceans began as an education legacy program for the XL Catlin Seaview Survey and has since developed into a standalone education initiative, reaching 1.24 million students to date. It currently comprises a full suite of teacher resources to deliver standards-aligned science and geography learning for ages 7-16. It is supported by a range of multimedia resources including virtual reality experiences and also features the flagship Coral Live event. Coral Live allows students and classes to interact directly with researchers in the field. These live events have reached 51,700 students, and have run out of Timor-Leste in 2015, Bermuda in 2017 and Curaçao in 2018 and 2019.

Encounter Edu aims to scale the reach of Coral Oceans to ensure that as many young people as possible are supported to learn about the coral ecosystem through mainstream formal education. This will involve further translation and localization of the teacher resources, development of professional development opportunities, especially those that link coral researchers with educators, and the scaling of Coral Live to include more research locations and geographies.

At the core of this work remains:

1. Building knowledge and creating appreciation of the ecological importance of corals;
2. Developing skills to work scientifically, through the live investigations and interviews with researchers;
3. Inspiring a generation of global citizens and environmental stewards to safeguard the future of corals habitats.

Coral Oceans education operates within the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, namely Goal 4 Quality Education (specifically Goal 4.7), Goal 13 Climate Action and Goal 14 Life under water. Encounter Edu is also working within the context of the emerging strategy for Ocean Literacy for the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

Last Updated: 2 February 2022