Initiative · 2002 — present

A quarter-century of literacies.

Beginning in 2002 with the National Geographic Society — using the ocean to teach geography — the College of Exploration has helped seed, host, and shape a family of literacy frameworks. Ocean. Earth. Systems. Climate. Atmosphere. Energy. Region by region, the work has rippled outward.

What follows is a timeline of those literacies and our role in each.

Led or co-led Hosted / facilitated Supported · communicated
2002where it began
Geography literacy · National Geographic Society

Oceans for Life

The seed. In January 2002, the College of Exploration co-hosted an online conference with the National Geographic Society that produced Oceans for Life — a guide using the ocean as the vehicle to teach geography. The Scope and Sequence Chart was built on the U.S. national geography standards and endorsed by the Geography Education National Implementation Project (GENIP). Everything downstream traces back to here.

oceans-for-life →
2004framework born
Ocean literacy · Co-led

Ocean Literacy

In October 2004 the College of Exploration hosted a two-week online workshop, Ocean Literacy Through Science Standards, with roughly 100 ocean scientists and educators from NGS, NOAA, NMEA, COSEE, Lawrence Hall of Science, Sea Grant and others. The 2005 guide defined ocean literacy and set out the seven Essential Principles and 45 fundamental concepts that are now used worldwide.

oceanliteracy.net → the archive →
2008our initiative
Systems literacy · Our initiative

Systems Literacy

Recognising that ocean, earth, atmosphere, energy and climate are one system, we launched the Systems Literacy initiative in 2008. Its purpose: to integrate the separate literacies into a more holistic understanding of the planet, and to articulate what it means to be systems-literate in the first place. This remains an active, evolving initiative we lead.

systemsliteracy.org →
2009co-led
Earth science literacy · Led & co-led

Earth Science Literacy

We led and co-led the Earth Science Literacy initiative with a committee of fifteen others. In 2009 we hosted more than 150 scientists, educators, and policy makers on the Caucus Online Campus to establish the nine Big Ideas and seventy-five supporting concepts of Earth science. Funded by NSF as the Earth Science Literacy Initiative (ESLI), the resulting Principles have since shaped K–12 textbooks and the Next Generation Science Standards.

earthsciencesliteracy.net →
2009supported
Climate · Atmospheric · Supported

Climate & Atmospheric Science Literacy

Parallel efforts in the same Earth-system family. The Climate Literacy framework — Essential Principles of Climate Science — was led by NOAA and AAAS; the Atmospheric Science Literacy framework was developed through UCAR and CIRES. We supported and helped communicate both, and connected them into the larger systems-literacy conversation.

atmospheric framework →
2011supported
Regional adaptation · Supported

Great Lakes Literacy & Lake Erie Literacy

The first regional adaptations of the Ocean Literacy framework. The Lake Erie Literacy Principles, developed by an Ohio agency partnership, served as a prototype; COSEE Great Lakes then translated each Ocean Literacy principle into an eight-principle Great Lakes Literacy framework — a model later followed by other seas and lakes worldwide.

cgll.org →
2013supported
Energy literacy · Supported

Energy Literacy

Developed through the U.S. Department of Energy with contributions across the Earth-system literacy community, the Energy Literacy framework set out essential principles and fundamental concepts for energy education. We supported the broader effort and the integration of energy into the systems-literacy conversation.

energy.gov · framework →
2015supported
Network · Supported

Asia Marine Educators Association

Ocean literacy travelling east. We supported the formation of the Asia Marine Educators Association (AMEA) to grow ocean literacy capacity across the Asia-Pacific region.

2020supported
Regional adaptation · Supported

Mediterranean Sea Literacy

Work began in 2015 within the EMSEA Med working group; the published Mediterranean Sea Literacy guide arrived in 2020 with seven principles and 43 concepts, translated across multiple languages and adapted to the specificities of a semi-enclosed sea between three continents.

mediterranean sea literacy →
—ongoing
Screen literacy · Our initiative

Screen Literacy

How we read, learn from, and lose ourselves to screens — and what it takes to be literate in a screen-saturated world. A CoExplorer initiative in development. [Brief synopsis to confirm — year founded, scope, and any partners.]

screenliteracy.org →
—supported
Network literacy · Supported

Network Literacy

Initiated by the Network Science Society, Network Literacy asks what it means to be literate about networks themselves — their patterns, dynamics, and ethics in a networked world. Peter created the networkliteracy.org website, and the College of Exploration produced a video for the initiative.

networkliteracy.org →
04 · The pattern

Each literacy is a way of seeing — but no one literacy is enough on its own.

The original ocean literacy work taught us that a framework is most useful when it is co-developed: by hundreds of scientists, educators, and policy makers in conversation, not by a small committee. The Caucus Online Campus made that scale possible. Confabula now carries the same pattern forward.

The Systems Literacy initiative exists because of what we learned doing the others: ocean and earth and atmosphere and climate and energy are not separate things, and citizens need a way to hold them together. That is still the open question — and the work continues.