Ocean literacy through science standards

Ocean sciences were idiosyncratically left out of the National Science Education Standards and most state standards, resulting in a decline in the public's attention to ocean issues. National Geographic Society, COSEE, NMEA, NOAA and the US Commission on Ocean Policy have all urgently called for the inclusion of the ocean in science standards as a means to increase ocean literacy nationwide. There has never been consensus, however, about what ocean literacy is and what concepts need to be included in standards to achieve it Last fall, an on-line workshop on "Ocean Literacy through Science Standards" attempted to develop this consensus. This paper describes the resulting definition of ocean literacy; the essential principles; and fundamental concepts and their alignment to the National Science Education Standards.