Partners

Mission: Protect our oceans would not have been possible without the support and input of the wide range of partners that we have worked with across Canada.

Schools and parents

We would like to extend a big thank you to all the teachers that ran the oceans challenge in their schools and uploaded their students’ amazing invention ideas.

Another big thank you to the parents and families who have supported their kids at home and used the Little Inventors resources to keep their children engaged during the pandemic. You have all helped us to keep connecting with your students, even through the hurdles imposed by the COVID-19 lockdown. Thank you!

Partners

The Canadian Commission for UNESCO (CCUNESCO)

As an oceans challenge co-lead, CCUNESCO contributed greatly to the success of the oceans challenge. The Mission: Protect our oceans challenge also supported two of CCUNESCO’s key priorities: youth engagement and science for sustainable development. CCUNESCO considered that the theme of the challenge was timely and highly relevant to the upcoming UN Oceans Decade. The Canadian Commission promoted the challenge through their networks, especially the UNESCO Associated Schools Network. The oceans challenge thanks CCUNESCO for their contribution and for helping Canadians share knowledge locally and globally in order to create better societies and build peace in the minds of men and women. The Commission facilitates cooperation in the fields of education, science, culture, communication, and information to address some of the most complex challenges facing the world today, such as improving our oceans health.

Let’s Talk Science

Let’s Talk Science is a leading Canadian charity, focused on education and skills development for Canadian children and youth through science, technology, engineering and math-based programs. Thanks to their ample breadth of knowledge about the Canadian education system, Let’s Talk Science was key to developing the oceans challenge educational resource packs. The oceans challenge was disseminated through the extended Let’s Talk Science network and included in their Horizon Project, which during the COVID-19 pandemic provided vulnerable youth in grades 4-6 with fun, free, hands-on STEM and literacy activities that required no internet access.

Digital Mi'kmaq

Digital Mi'kmaq is a groundbreaking grassroots-built Indigenous-led initiative that aims to create lasting foundational change for a new generation through the interplay of science, culture, education and digital skills. Digital Mi’kmaq delivers integrated programs, projects and initiatives to help build capacity and establish regenerative economies for Indigenous youth and their communities. The Little Inventors oceans challenge was shared with their community, inviting Indigenous Youth of Atlantic Canada to DARE TO DREAM and draw their invention ideas on how to protect our oceans. For additional inspiration, Digital Mi’kmaq included their magnificent Oceans Alive Edition of Backyard Science! A perfect way to learn about our oceans with Etuaptmumk  Two-Eyed Seeing approach!

 

Canadian Science Fair Journal

The Canadian Science Fair Journal (CSFJ) is an online, open-access journal that showcases science projects conducted and written by students from across the country. The journal is preparing a special edition to be issued next September 2021, featuring 20 of the most extraordinary invention ideas to protect our oceans. In their unique style, CSFJ is helping the young inventors with a one-on-one mentoring process, explaining the steps to come up with what could be the Little Inventors kids’ first publication, and including fantastic illustrations. Check it out!

OCAD University

OCAD University challenges students to audaciously and responsibly pursue the questions of our time through the powerful interplay of art, design, the social sciences, humanities, and the sciences. OCADU’s Centre for Emerging Artists & Designers (CEAD), and the Little Inventors oceans challenge worked together to produce extraordinary artworks using integrated media and/or digital painting & expanded animation. Thank you to the OCAD University students whose fantastic artworks form part of this virtual exhibit.

Collaborators

Many thanks to all our project supporters

Canadian Space Agency (CSA) – Thank you for your support in delivering an incredible and informative webinar on October 6, 2020, to celebrate World Space Week. The webinar featured CSA engineer Taryn Tomlinson, who discussed the multiple ways in which Earth observation satellites help us monitor and protect our oceans.

Taryn Tomlinson - Check out the webinar recording, about how space gives us a vantage point from which to look back at Earth, helping us better understand the science of our planet, and find solutions to protect our environment, including our waters.

Exploring By The Seat Of Your Pants (EBTSOYP)– Thank you to EBTSOYP for hosting the June 8, 2020 webinars to celebrate World Oceans Day, featuring Dr. Paul Snelgrove, a professor of ocean sciences and Biology at Memorial University of Newfoundland, and Dr. Céline Audet, specialist in ecophysiology, collaborating with the Institut des sciences de la mer in Rimouski, Quebec.

Paul Snelgrove – Check out Dr. Snelgrove’s webinar on what it takes to be an oceanographer and why we should take care of our oceans.

Céline Audet – Listen to Dr’s Audet talk about her passion for aquatic organisms and marine biology.

Makers and animators:

Thanks to our magnificent makers and animators:

  • Jordan Alexander
  • Gabriela Antonini Escovedo
  • Sofia Borges
  • Si Yuet “Jessie” Cheung
  • Jade Chittock
  • Isabel Deslauriers
  • Jean Deslauriers
  • David Dumbrell
  • Twyla Exner
  • Annika Gonzalez
  • Joan Nuguid
  • Seyeon Park
  • Robin Ritter
  • Andres Torres
  • Jennifer Tran