During his first week as a Monterey Bay Aquarium Teen Conservation Leader, my teenage son texted me a photo. It was an exhibit panel about plastic pollution, and I was on it, holding a selfie frame with jazz pianist Gerald Clayton and then-Monterey Jazz Festival Executive Director Colleen Bailey.
That photo is from summer 2017. The Aquarium had partnered with the Jazz Festival to get people talking about ocean plastic, and I was on the campaign team. We developed messaging for a plastic-free ocean, handed reusable water bottles to musicians, and ran a bottle-refilling station all festival weekend. Clayton was the Aquarium’s Conservation Artist that year, and I wrote about our campaign for the Aquarium’s Conservation & Science blog.
Nine years later, my son is in the Aquarium teen program’s science communication track, learning to make multimedia stories about ocean science and conservation. And the message I helped build is still on the wall, reaching a new crowd.
A few skills from that campaign:
- Pair a personal action with a civic one. We asked people to carry a refillable bottle instead of buying single-use plastic; then we asked them to speak up to elected officials. The habit cuts one person’s waste. The civic ask builds public pressure for policy that can reshape the whole plastic supply chain.
- Build on a partner’s audience. Tens of thousands of jazz fans came to the festival for the music. They’ll remember our ocean conservation messaging as part of a good time.
- Give people something to hold. A water bottle refill station turned the message into something people do. The selfie frame offered them something to share with their networks online.
I left the Aquarium after a decade of conservation and community outreach. It’s a great feeling to know that work is still reaching people — including my own kid.