The University of Washington’s College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences, the College of Education and the Seattle Aquarium form a partnership establishing “Ocean Learning Communities – COSEE”, a thematic COSEE that attempts to foster collaborations among the oceanography research community, the science of learning community, the general public, and the maritime industry.

Ocean Learning Communities COSEE’s central premise is that citizens need to become more knowledgeable about ocean science and informed by current research if they are to become better stewards of the marine environment. Ocean Learning Communities COSEE’s catalytic activity will be to develop and study Learning Communities, which are groups forged from traditionally disparate communities that come together to expand the community capacity and develop sustainable solutions to ocean management research and educational problems.

Goals are to:
1) cultivate functional, contributing and ocean-literate citizens aware of the impact oceans have on their daily life and
2) strengthen the national COSEE network by developing ‘best practices’ methods for creating and sustaining learning communities. This will be accomplished by building a common language so diverse communities can learn and work together to promote science-based oceans management; fostering collaborations to engender solutions to marine-related problems; nurturing non-traditional ocean science-based partnerships; spreading science-learning and ocean science education at the public level; and learning about and disseminating models of how to build learning communities dedicated to science-based ocean management.
 
Ocean Learning Communities COSEE will create seven tangible results:
1) a series of learning experiences (workshops, e-communication forums and other methodologies) will orient the ocean learning community around four (annually rotating) themes (human health and oceans, marine hazards, changing oceans, and endangered resources,
2) community positions and scientific facts about the themes, and recommend education / outreach activities for raising public awareness,
3) educational products (such as citizen-science research projects, curricula or educational standards) will be created,
4) a year-end valuation report and community development report of how the community developed, and its successes and challenges,will be shared with the National COSEE Network to support replication ocean sciences learning communities,
5) an educational and fun celebration of the oceans will be held in Seattle and eventually replicated across the Pacific Northwest, and
6) linkage workshops (modeled after the successful California COSEE effort) will help ocean scientists address NSF’s criterion for incorporate effective education and outreach projects into research proposals and projects, and
7) science of learning research reports describing if and how stakeholders and their affiliated communities engage in science learning as a result of the activities of the center.

In order to facilitate the goals of COSEE, Ocean Learning Communities COSEE will provide scholarship opportunities for high school, undergraduate, graduate students and teachers to prepare the next generation of citizens with knowledge and skills at the interface between ocean science, education and societal needs. The community building approach proposed by the Ocean Learning Communities COSEE is widely inclusive bringing the maritime and other businesses, the public, the ocean sciences and science learning researchers and formal and informal education groups as equally-active and
represented participants. The concept for the Ocean Learning Communities partnership is based on reaching out to traditionally underserved populations (from the businesses that use the sea or for which economic success depends on the oceans to the united native tribes of the Northwest), listening to their concerns and needs and how these can be addressed within the context of ocean-based research to develop the rationale for this thematic COSEE.