Education Materials
Standards-based education materials have been developed that bring entire classrooms "on board" for deep ocean exploration and discovery. Using new technological "eyes" to see, sense, measure, image, and describe a little known ocean world, scientists and educators are bringing the excitement of late-breaking ocean discoveries into classrooms through lesson plans, curricula, Expedition Education Modules, NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer Education Materials Collection and more.
The NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer offers unparalleled opportunities to the scientific and education communities for "reaching out in new ways to stakeholders to improve the literacy of learners of all ages with respect to ocean issues" (Discovering Earth's Final Frontier: A U.S. Strategy for Ocean Exploration, 2000) and for enhancing awareness of Ocean Literacy Principle #7 - "The ocean is little explored." As a first step to achieving this vision, and in celebration of the 2008 commissioning, a two-day Okeanos Explorer Education Forum was held at the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory Western Regional Center Campus in Seattle, Washington, with the goal of developing the building blocks for a five-year education program.
See: NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer Education Forum Report