Communication, Education and Outreach

From the beginning, the Board has strived to make its information available to many different audiences including managers, rural communities, people dependent upon the resources, students, congressional representatives, and others interested in the marine ecosystems off Alaska.

Strategies for education and outreach include different products and mechanisms for reaching each of these groups, capitalizing on existing partnerships and responding to new opportunities. Some of the Board's first decisions involved education and outreach.

Early in 2002, the Board approved an Alaska SeaLife Center recommendation to use some of the $800,000 North Pacific Marine Research Institute funds to:

• enhance opportunities for field scientists to document their research on video
• provide seed money for marine science education for teachers and students in Alaska communities
• establish post-secondary education internships, short courses, and workshops in marine science and education, veterinary medicine, and teaching programs
• support development of a Bering Sea exhibit at the Alaska Sealife Center and an aquarium at its satellite office in Anchorage

The Board prioritized creating a website to provide information to the general public and scientific community. It also placed education and outreach requirements in annual requests for proposals, requiring $500 in each project in the early RFPs, but gradually increasing to $2000 in later RFPs.

Above: NPRB's ten-foot exhibit gives conference and workshop participants an overview of the organization's mission. See larger image