Center ICE awards seed funding to prioritize place-based ocean acidification education

Date: November 14, 2023

Time: 2:28

Under a RISE-UP Seed Fund award, researchers Natalie Monacci and Christina Buffington are partnering with Lingít Aaní, or Southeast Alaska, and Sheet’ká, the community of Sitka, on a project that may lead to monitoring and education products that could strengthen UAF enrollment. The project maps onto to RISE-UP’s overall goal of building solutions to real-world challenges and cultivating a workforce for the Navy and industries of the future. Monacci and Buffington are working under the guidance of local teachers and the Sitka Tribe of Alaska to explore the community’s interest in formal education materials on ocean acidification. At the end of this planning award, they will seek funding to build a culturally-relevant curriculum that deeply involves students and the Tribes in ocean acidification research and education. 

Lingít Aaní, home of the Lingít, Haida and Tsimshian people, is an Alaska region closely tied to the marine ecosystem where resources are vital to culture, food security and jobs. Monacci’s and others’ research has shown that the ocean acidification in Lingít Aaní is greater than the global average, with acute changes expected in the next 15 years. Ocean acidification makes the region especially vulnerable and justifies continued monitoring of ocean conditions by groups such as the Sitka Tribe of Alaska and the University of Alaska Fairbanks Ocean Acidification Research Center. Local students in Sitka are also involved in collecting ocean data with an organization called Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment. 

The funded project is aiming to deepen the trust among students, educators, communities and oceanographers in order to reach a level of scientific readiness that will make it competitive for federal grants to take it to the next level. By supporting this project, Center ICE’s RISE-UP program is facilitating the co-creation of culturally relevant educational materials that will contribute to training tomorrow’s climate change leaders. The resulting curriculum may also be shared as an example beyond Alaska, thus building awareness to the importance of culture- and place-based approaches to climate change monitoring and science.

RISE-UP is a partnership between Center ICE and the Office of Naval Research. Learn more by clicking here!