Education and Outreach
The Office of National Marine Sanctuaries education vision is to create an ocean-literate public making informed environmental decisions. The mission is to inspire ocean and climate literacy and conservation through national marine sanctuaries.
National marine sanctuaries are living classrooms where people can see, touch and learn about the nation's spectacular marine life and rich maritime heritage. The NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries is charged with conserving and managing special ocean areas deemed to be of irreplaceable national significance. Education plays a key role in fulfilling this mandate. Over the past decade, sanctuary education programs have been a powerful force in building stewardship for these unique places and in stimulating marine education. In coordination and cooperation with numerous partners, we hope to inspire our nation's citizens to greater levels of personal responsibility for the marine and freshwater environments and greater stewardship of America's underwater treasures - national marine sanctuaries.
National Education Strategic Plan 2010-2020
The NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries Education Strategic Plan is meant to be a visionary document which capitalizes on the current momentum for changes and sets an over-arching structure from which to create successful implementation plans on a site, regional and national level. Through the goals and objectives outlined in our plan, we hope to set the course toward achieving our vision of an ocean-literate public making informed environmental decisions. This plan was also written to build upon the past successes from the first National Marine Sanctuary System Education Strategic Plan adopted in August 2000 and to focus our efforts in fulfillment of our mission to inspire ocean and climate literacy and conservation of the through national marine sanctuaries.