The better future generations understand their responsibility for preserving and protecting the environment, the better job they’ll do when their turn comes. Tom Gaskill, Education Program Coordinator at South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve in Charleston understands this. That’s why he’s involved in planning, development, and delivery of educational programs for the reserve. A naturalist, birder, and educator, Tom has experience in curriculum development and implementation combining field science with classroom and lab experiences to produce inquiry-driven student projects.
In 2009, Tom got together with a group of Oregon educators focused on marine education, and talked about how they could work together more effectively. They created the Oregon Coast Education Program(OCEP). “We chose the term ‘coastal education’ to encompass both the marine side and the salty part of estuaries,” said Tom, “and to differentiate what we were doing a little bit from watershed education, which is happening all over the state. We wanted to focus on working together as a group of institutions to do a better job of sharing curriculum resources that they weren’t getting out there and being used as effectively as they might.”
OCEP is building confidence in teachers who pass that confidence on to their students. Participating teachers have a stronger understanding of the coastal environment and the connections between watersheds, estuaries, and the ocean, and a set of resources to use with their students in investigating these connections in meaningful, inquiry-based ways. This generates a passion the teachers pass on to their students, preparing them for future stewardship of the environment.