Sharing Our Love of the Ocean

During a NMEA Past Presidents’ Circle discussion, each of us told a story about how and when we met the ocean and fell in love with it. Of course, this included the inland ocean of the Great Lakes. We spoke of vacations at the beach, fishing, boating, or clamming in the mud flats. At some point in our early years, we got into the marine environment. Then, because we are all teachers to our bones, we have to share this love of the sea with friends and especially, our students.

Programs that give students the opportunity to meet the ocean and develop this passion are critical to ocean awareness. Some of these students may join the ocean sciences workforce; some may become educators. However for me, the desired outcomes are people who care about the health of our shorelines, estuaries, and coastal waters—and take action to protect them…stewardship.

Years ago, Nancy H. Richardson associated with Girl Scouts of America, introduced the American Sail Trainning Association at a NMEA conference, speaking with passion about tall ships and what they offered. Whenever NMEA met in New England, we could see the tall masts and spars of the traditional vessels along the docks. Often a conference field experience would be a tour or even a sail on one of these lovely ships. However in the southern states, we saw these ships only when they dropped into ports, like Beaufort, NC, or Charleston, SC on their seasonal migrations to the Caribbean in winter and New England in summer.

January 2007, Tony Arrow, Captain of not-yet-launched Spirit of South Carolina, and Sarah Piwinski, the Education Director, invited me to spend four days on the sailing ship, Westward, to get a flavor of what tall ships represent to people and what an experience on such a ship can teach. Our route went from Charleston to Miami, skirting westward of the Gulf Stream current, experiencing a low with strong wind and waves, and later the remarkable brightness of clear weather, as we moved past the high rise structures of Florida’s southern coastline. This voyage was an amazing experience, particularly if we were on the same watch—sharing the closeness of the ocean and connecting our souls as we learned to steer a course and trim sails.

Later in March, I watched the 150-foot coastal schooner, Spirit of South Carolina, gently lowered into Charleston Harbor and touch salt water for the first time. Two hundred boats and more that 2,000 people blew horns and shouted at the launch. This ship reflects the long-time maritime heritage of the southeastern United States. The Spirit of South Carolina  is dedicated to education, giving fifth graders, high school explorers, youth at risk and teachers that touch with the sea. This summer, dolphins will swim at her bow and gannets will swoop along her side as she reaches out into the south Atlantic Bight on short and long voyages.

Tall ships, like the Spirit of South Carolina run by the South Carolina Maritime Foundation, provide the “blue water” experiences that make long term memories. However, most marine educators offer students salt marshes, sea grasses, and small boats—the near-shore experiences of bays, estuaries, and tidal creeks. We are thankful for the National Estuarine Research Reserves, parks, wildlife refuges, and camps that provide public access to the coast. Some cities harbor educational programs like “The Living Classroom,” Baltimore MD, that use traditional boats to introduce students to bay waters and interdisciplinary sciences. Public and private aquariums open windows to colorful and dynamic ecosystems of near-shore and ocean waters. We must support and increase the contact that each generation has with the ocean.

Each fall, the Ocean Conservancy’s International Ocean Clean Up joins with state organizations to encourage hundreds of thousands of volunteers to remove litter from lake and ocean shorelines. Once, when I was working with the NC Big Sweep, someone criticized the effort, saying that the day after the cleanup, beaches would still have cans, plastics and old coolers, so why bother? But, I know that each of these volunteers made a commitment of stewardship to their shores and waters, and that commitment will influence other people. This combines contact with care and action.

Tall ships remind us to think on a larger scale and apply the first essential principle of Ocean Literacy—There is Just One Ocean. Salty waters link us globally through many basins, bays, gulfs, straits, and seas. Students and their teachers need the opportunities to understand how we are linked to traditional and current scientific knowledge of the sea, to economic dependence on shipping, and to people who live beyond our shores. I think each person should feel marsh mud between their toes and a sea breeze on his or her face. It is our charge in marine education.

 Lundie Spence is an Honorary Member of NMEA, AAAS Fellow, and served as NMEA president in 1982-83. She is Director of COSEE SouthEast, serving North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.