Sponsor a public lecture about the ocean by an environmental leader, educator, or scientist. Focus the lecture topic around this year’s World Oceans Day theme, encouraging solutions to plastic pollution and preventing marine litter, or a specific local issue of interest. Be sure to host a forum or questions and answers session afterwards to encourage lasting community involvement.
Alternatively, show a screening of an ocean lecture. Here are some interesting ocean lectures by the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History and a variety of ocean-themed TED Talks.
Host a book reading (and afterwards a signing) with local authors who have written about the ocean. Local bookstores should be able to give you leads on who to contact in your area.
Alternatively, gather volunteers to read portions an ocean book of your choosing such as:
Blue Mind by Wallace J. Nichols
The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea by Callum Roberts
Plastic Ocean by Charles Moore
Seasick: Ocean Change and the Extinction of Life on Earth by Alanna Mitchell
Ocean Soul by Brian Skerry
Ocean Country: One Woman's Voyage from Peril to Hope in her Quest To Save the Seas by Liz Cunningham
World Without Fish by Mark Kurlansky
Sea Change by Sylvia Earle
For Youth:
The Youth Guide To The Ocean by Youth and United Nations Global Alliance
Going Blue: A Teen Guide to Saving Our Oceans, Lakes, Rivers, & Wetlands by Cathryn Berger Kaye and Philippe Cousteau
World Oceans Day by Samantha Mackiewicz