Blue Economy Pathways Educator Events
Our target audience for all educator events is high school teachers, counselors, administrators, and career coaches, but we accept educators from other levels, space-permitting.
Annual Summer Coastal Crawl—June 9-12, 2025
Special blue economy focus: Ecotourism
Monday noon, June 9, Gulfport: Gulf Blue Navigator, Ocean Aero, Port of Gulfport.
Ecotourism focus: Ship Island Excursions dolphin cruise.
Tuesday, June 10, Pascagoula: Gulf LNG, Pascagoula River Audubon Center, H2O Solutions, Omega Protein
Ecotourism focus: Blue Economy lunch panel at Czak’s Coastal Cuisine featuring Chevron, NOAA Fisheries, Bollinger Shipyards, and MS Senator Brice Wiggins.Wednesday, June 11, Gulfport, Biloxi, Ocean Springs: Lyman Fish Hatchery, Keesler AFB Meteorology, MS Dept. of Marine Resources
Ecotourism focus: Walter Anderson Museum art & nature tour, plus tabling event featuring educators from Sea Grant, Dauphin Island Sea Lab, USM’s Marine Education Center, and MSU’s Coastal Research and Extension Center.
Thursday, June 13, Long Beach, Pass Christian: Delta Audubon Society, Naval Oceanography Enterprise, USM School of Ocean Science and Engineering, Pearl River Community College Hydrography Program.
Ecotourism focus: Clean beaches, safe harbors, shore birds
“The balance of site visits, expert panels, and hands-on demonstrations helped me build a complete picture of Blue Economy career pathways.”
Hear what teachers have to say!
“Absolutely the best PD experience I have ever had in 23 years!!!!”
“The GenSea 3-day teacher workshop was awesome! We visited so many places and got to learn about many job opportunities, including educational requirements, that we can take to our classrooms and share with our students to help guide them as they think about their futures.”
“This was amazing and one of the most beneficial teacher workshops I’ve ever attended. There is not one thing I learned that I cannot incorporate with my lessons. We have an amazing blue economy in our back yard and these local students and beyond need to know what all it offers other than just white sandy beaches.”
“My expectations were exceeded for this training. I appreciate the access that was granted to the teacher participants. We enjoyed learning about and meeting professionals who expressed interest in actually helping us connect our students to jobs. We felt like VIPs the entire three days, and that was extremely rewarding.”
“It's such a great opportunity to get CEUs and learn about different topics without sitting in a singular classroom for 9 hours. I have already spoken highly to other teachers in my hallway and my principal about this trip, and the feedback has been nothing short of excitement and a desire to get a similar experience.”
Read more about teacher responses to the program here.