What's the Ocean got to do with Human Health?

Nguyen Huynh and Darrell Steely worked with Guilio De Leo and Robin Elahi from Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station to develop a Planetary Health Based lesson that enabled students to make the important connection between the health of the ocean and the health of humans. Using information from the Planetary Health Alliance Case Studies, real data, and local research, students will be able to define the criteria and constraints of problems and design a solution.

Students will work in teams to interpret and model data that will allow them to understand the connection between ocean health and human health. Finally they will be given the opportunity to propose sustainable solutions to the issues they have learned about. Students will have to consider and identify limitations that relate to geography, poverty, and COVID-19. These plans will be shared with other teachers via the internet and through various conferences.

Students will design a solution that addresses the phenomenon: “Currently 845 million people are at risk of malnutrition. Scientists say that fish might be the solution. How will fish solve our crisis and is it something that we can do sustainably?”