Abstract
Ocean literacy among the general public is generally low, especially so for inland populations with very few direct interactions with the ocean. Minnesota State University Moorhead (MSUM), located in the center of the North American continent, established an oceanarium as a living laboratory for their biology curriculum and as a facility for community outreach to K12 students and members of the public. Our outreach program promotes the seven areas of the ocean literacy framework established by UNESCO (UNESCO). Here, we report ocean literacy of youth aged 9–14 before and after a 4-day summer program on ocean literacy held at the MSUM oceanarium. We used pre- and post-workshop surveys to determine pre-knowledge and learning gains. Overall, participants showed a 13% learning gain in ocean literacy by the end of the workshop. Three principles of ocean literacy (One big ocean, Ocean influences climate, and Ocean is largely unexplored) had the highest rates of pre-knowledge and also the highest rates of learning gains suggesting either that (1) the workshop covered these areas particularly well, (2) these are easy concepts for youth to grasp, and/or (3) there was youth-to-youth transfer of knowledge during the workshop. Grade level (age) predicted pre-knowledge, with older participants scoring higher than younger ones, and female participants out-scoring males. Neither age nor sex affected learning gain during the workshop. By the end of the workshop, there was a significant shift toward an increasingly positive attitude about oceans but no change in interest in ocean-related jobs.