The Oceanography Society will convene a forum on environmental outreach to the public on March 5th, 2008 during the biennial Ocean Science Meeting in Orlando, FL. The audience will be members of various organizations who are attending the larger conference and the media. The Ocean Science conference will probably draw about 3500 participants primarily from academic institutions, non-profit research institutions, federal research labs, state and federal agencies, and industry.
The purpose of the forum is to promote discussion on how the marine and aquatic science community can more effectively provide information to the public and to communicators. Six to ten panelists will be available to provide examples of effective outreach/education efforts. Two discussion topics proposed are 1) Making communication of environmental issues more effective, 2) Reducing barriers to scientists to communicate with the public or to work with professional communicators. Funds will support travel for the panelists.
This proposal presents a novel method of encouraging scientists to develop outreach and education programs. Program notes that this type of forum is new for the Ocean Sciences meeting and is part of a growing level of attention focused on education and outreach at oceanographic conferences.
The proposed education and outreach effort is strongly focused on supporting broader impacts of NSF-funded oceanographic research awards. The intended result is to get the oceanographic community to focus more attention on outreach and to conduct more effective outreach and education programs at a time when environmental issues, particularly global change issues, are of increasing importance.
