There will never be a better time for you and your students to help tum the tide for oceans. Activities and project ideas in this kit will help you chart your schools' blueprint for ocean action.
What’s in This Kit?
This Oceans Day package focuses on Canada’s incredible coasts and the need to restore and protect them for the good of ail creatures, from lobsters to leatherback turtles, from haddock to human beings.
- It constitutes a long-term lesson plan designed to inform the future stewards of our seas that, no matter where they live, they are connected with the world's oceans, and that their daily activities can help or hurt coastal marshes, kelp forests, polar icecaps, or the ocean floor.
- It is brimming with resources to help youngsters undertake "ocean action" projects on river banks, lake shores, and seacoasts.
- It stresses the value of partnerships between inland and coastal schools and between Canadian and southern schools in view of the global connectedness of ail aquatic ecosystems.
Section I
- Ocean's Day
Wherever we live — big city, prairie, mountain, forest, riverside, tundra, or shore — we could not survive without the ocean.
Section II:
- Homage to the Oceans
A whole sea of opportunities to organize ocean-related events awaits you.
Section III:
- Conserve Ocean Links
Canadians have an especially close connection with the ocean.
Section IV:
- Sustain Our Seacoasts
Get to know a seacoast, lakeside, or riverbank firsthand.
Section V:
- Conserve the Arctic Marine Ecosystem
You can help prevent or slow the pace of such long-range impacts by doing the classroom activities and ocean action projects in this section.
Section VI:
- Preserve Our Aquatic Heritage
The following activities and projects will enable you to start taking decisive action, such as promoting the establishment of marine conservation areas.
Section VII:
- Boost Ocean Biodiversity
We've scarcely begun to understand the diversity hidden in the ocean and the interrelationships among its innumerable parts.
Section VIII:
- Prevent Marine Pollution
Pollution kills countless ocean creatures, impacting hardest on coastal waters, the areas richest in biodiversity and the marine resources we depend on most.
Summary Content:
- One Earth, One Ocean, One Life
Welcome to the biggest celebration of oceans ever!
Nowhere Near an Ocean?
Your school may be thousands of kilometres away from the nearest coast. But the health of our oceans matters to all of us. And what each of us does affects their health.
Prairie, big city, mountain, and coastal inhabitants alike, we all have a stake in conserving the life-sustaining force of oceans. They feed us, satisfy our thirst, give us air to breathe, cure us of disease, control the world's climate, and inspire us with their beauty and mystery.
Our profound connection to the world's oceans results, in part, from the endless flow of water seaward through Systems of rivers, lakes, and wetlands, called drainage basins. Much of the air we breathe and water we drink, in turn, comes to us on atmospheric currents from oxygen produced by ocean plants and moisture evaporated from the sea.
Unfortunately, oceans are often a "blind spot" in our awareness of the planet that gives us life. Pesticides sprayed on crops and leached into streams, raw sewage dumped into rivers and lakes, contaminants and greenhouse gases spewed from factories and automobiles — they ail work their way out to sea through those same drainage basins and atmospheric currents.
That’s why this educational kit is as much for inlanders as for shore dwellers. By learning how all of us are connected with oceans, we are better able to protect them — and ourselves. After all, healthy oceans are good news for everyone.
