Sponsors

Funding and Support Rationale

Objectives

• To expand on the success of the 2005 One Ocean Marine Forum and the 2007 International Pacific Marine Educators Conference. And, more critically, to maintain the leading role that Australian marine educators have established in the shaping the future of marine environmental education internationally.
• To provide relevant government agencies, organisations and industries with an opportunity to promote their activities and commitment to the community and to educating for sustainable development.
• To support conference costs to keep the conference fee reasonable for active marine educators not receiving scholarships or other financial support.
• To involve a wider audience by web casting critical elements of the conference worldwide both interactively in real time and through video-streams for later downloading.
• To provide scholarships for conference delegates unable to fund their own conference expenses, particularly delegates from low income countries in the Pacific (World Bank ranking) and to other small island developing countries in the Pacific. Sponsors wishing to provide scholarship funds may specify that it be for participants from a particular country or region.
• To encourage interaction and sharing of knowledge between students and marine educators and to provide young people with the opportunity to decide how they will be heard both now and in the future.

Outcomes

1. The development of strategies that focus on the challenge of educating for sustainable development at an international level. In particular, focusing on the elements of educating for sustainable development that relate to the Pacific Ocean and Pacific Ocean communities and by focusing on the challenge of creating the next generation of ocean scientists, ocean educators, ocean literate citizens and ocean literate decision makers.
2. The continued identification of challenges to and solutions for knowledge (including traditional knowledge) and resource sharing within the Pacific taking into account the cultural, socioeconomic and technological diversity within the region.
   • The identification and development of standards of ocean literacy at local and regional levels across the Pacific Ocean.
   • Development of a system for the identification, housing and distribution of proven marine-related curricula and educational resources useful to communities in the Pacific.
   • The identification of needed marine-related curricula and environmental educational resources and potential means for developing them.
3. To continue the development of a network of marine educators throughout the Pacific Ocean (including classroom teachers, informal educators and other community, government and non-government representatives involved in marine education), to share resources and to eventually link with marine educators worldwide.
   • The refinement of means to ensure the active continuation and expansion of the network of marine educators in the Pacific.
   • The continued identification of and establishment of working relations with other groups and organisations using similar approaches to resource sharing and network building in order to reduce unnecessary duplication of effort and to maximize synergies.
   • The further development of a model that marine educators elsewhere in the world can use to establish and maintain their own regional networks.
4. Capacity building and finding solutions to the real challenge of building, financing and maintaining a functioning network of active marine educators throughout the Pacific Ocean.
   

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