How many times had Simon Willig and Ayla Besemer heard, “Our future is in your hands?” At 12 and 10 years old, it wouldn’t be the last time.
As these two kids sat together, working the event table at the Monterey Bay Aquarium during World Ocean Day 2007, they quickly realized they had a common love and concern for the world’s oceans. In just a few hours that day, Simon and Ayla decided to create a program to help kids restore our oceans. That was about a year ago.
Today, with the support of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Ayla and Simon have given their Save Our Seas presentation to over 150 kids in grades 3 through 8, and they are just getting started. On June 6, these two ocean savers talked with students at Oak Knoll School in Menlo Park, hoping to inspire them to make simple, everyday changes that will make a huge difference in the life of the oceans.
Simon and Ayla’s presentation has three critical goals:
• To educate youth on the importance of our oceans. “It’s your ocean that gives,” says Simon. “In medicine for instance, the little horseshoe crab’s blood can help detect deadly bacteria in drugs before they are injected into humans.”
• To provide students with a clear, fact-based picture of the current condition of the oceans. Ayla poses a thought-provoking question, “Take a guess at when our oceans will be completely fished out if we keep going at this rate? “
• Most important, Simon and Ayla hope to instill in their audience a sense of responsibility for restoring the oceans, and a sense of empowerment as productive, ambitious youth. “These are big problems, but the good news is that you can help,” insists Simon. “Starting right this minute, you can make a difference.”
Ayla and Simon finish their presentation with lively encouragement. They offer the audience several opportunities to hop on the Save Our Seas cause. Each student receives a Think Ocean card with 15 ways to start saving the oceans today. And, they invite anyone who is interested to learn how to give the Save Our Seas presentation so the word can spread quickly.
I asked Simon and Ayla what they would say if they could send a message to all kids their age:
Simon: “Because you are a kid, you are in the best position to make a difference in the future of our oceans.”
Ayla: “As kids we have a voice, let’s use it to make the world better.”
INFORMATION
• Simon Willig is a seventh-grader at Crystal Springs Uplands School in Hillsborough. Ayla Besemer is in the fifth grade at Bear Creek Elementary School in Boulder, Colorado. They met while volunteering in the Official Explorer program at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
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