Valuation of Ocean Guardian School Program

The Ocean Guardian School (OGS) program is a grant program supported by the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation (NMSF) and coordinated out of NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS). The program furthers the educational goals of ONMS by supporting hands-on, ocean stewardship projects in K-12 public, private and charter schools. Schools are awarded small grants ($1,000 to $4,000) to carry out their own school or community-based conservation projects that make a difference in the health and protection of their local watersheds and/or the world's ocean. In the spring of 2016, OGS parents participated in a survey to estimate parents' perceptions and values towards their child's participation in the program and their monetary value for OGS program.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Ocean Guardian Schools

Twenty-nine schools participated in the Ocean Guardian School (OGS) program for the 2015-2016 school year. The OGS program serves a variety of school types including; public (including charter) and private schools. This survey was conducted during a two-month period during the end of the school year when most of the schools had completed their stewardship project. The projects are determined by the schools and may be school-wide or specific to a grade, classroom, or extracurricular activity. There are five ocean conservation topics that schools may choose from to implement including; refuse/reduce/reuse/recycle/, rot (composting), marine debris, watershed restoration, schoolyard habitat/garden, or energy use and ocean health.

Chapter 3: Questionnaire Design and Implementation

Designing the questionnaire began in the fall of 2015. Several discussions with Ocean Guardian Program faculty and Office of National Marine Sanctuary leadership determine the goals of the survey. The survey went through the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review to assure respondent burden was minimized and the questions were asked in a way that could produce results that could be extrapolated to the OGS population. The survey was implemented from May to June 2016 via Survey Monkey and print versions that were sent home with students. Versions in both English and Spanish were available.

Chapter 4: Results of the Survey

Nearly 90 percent of parents support their child's participation in the program. Nearly 80% of parents support outdoor education and 85.3% support environmental education. Roughly, 80% of parents thought that OGS program positively influenced their child's perceptions of watersheds, ocean ecosystems and our natural world. In addition, about two-thirds of parents thought their own perception of watersheds, ocean ecosystems and our natural world was positively influenced through their child's participation in the program. The top two benefit parents reported were 1. An increased responsibility towards the environment and 2. The increased understanding of how people interact with the environment.

Chapter 5: Economic Modeling and Results

When estimating the value of OGS, the highest valued pathway of OGS is schoolyard habitat and gardens. Parents are willing to pay nearly $60 through increased school costs and/or field trip costs for their child to receive this education. Watershed restoration has a value of roughly $45 to parents.

Chapter 6: Conclusions and Future Research

The research sought to fill several existing research gaps about the value of ocean literacy education and specific characteristics of that education that people are willing to pay for. It is clear that with proper program planning and design benefits can exceed costs. This is without considering other economic benefits not included in this analysis. These benefits include; the value-added of the school projects to schools or local communities, the long-term impacts that changed behavior of students and parents may have on the environment and the costs savings because of students completing restoration projects or cleaning up marine debris relative to hiring someone.

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