An ocean of opportunity

While most of her classmates were preparing for the start of another academic year in early September, Emma Arsenault was preparing for the trip of a lifetime.

Emma, a fourth-year Marine Biology student, was the Canadian delegate for the Our Ocean Youth Ambassadors program, which is run by the U.S. Department of State. Along with student delegates from 22 other coastal countries, Emma spent two weeks travelling from San Francisco to New Hampshire to Washington, D.C., learning about marine protection initiatives and policy.

Emma was first made aware of the opportunity through her involvement with Students on Ice, an educational polar expedition program that helped to spark her passion for the ocean as a high school student.

“I’m part of (Students on Ice’s) alumni network and I’ve worked with them in a logistics capacity these last few years,” Emma says. “The U.S. Embassy reached out to them and said there was this huge opportunity, so I put my name forward.”

Multiple perspectives

Emma says each stop on the trip provided a unique insight into how organizations at multiple levels are working to protect the ocean.

“We met in San Francisco and talked about marine and coastal protection strategies,” Emma says. “They had some really awesome marine laboratories and Northern California has recently implemented some great protection strategies for some of their coastal environments.”

In New Hampshire, the focus shifted to local initiatives.

“We got to participate in a beach cleanup with the community,” says Emma. “It was really cool to see the difference between the things that were happening at the state level in California as opposed to community-based initiatives in New Hampshire.”

The final stop in the journey was the Youth Leadership Summit at Georgetown University, which included an opportunity to participate at the Our Ocean conference hosted by the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Emma says the Washington portion of the trip made the biggest impact on her.

“It was an eye-opener. I didn’t know, and I don’t know if a lot of people know, what diplomacy looks like,” she says. “(The conference) was quite a big show, but it also turned out to be quite constructive. Some states made some really big commitments to marine protection.

“And it was even more valuable to learn from other young people around the world who are working at the community level. That, I think, is where ocean protection will have the biggest impact.

According to Emma, she and her fellow Our Ocean Youth Ambassadors were able to share their views while at the same time taking in information about the intersection of science and policy.

“I was there to bring my perspective as a Canadian working on the North Atlantic, because that’s the environment that I’m familiar with, and to bring what I’ve learned as a Dalhousie student. But for the most part I was trying to be a sponge.”

Blending science and policy

What she absorbed on the trip was a fair trade-off for the two weeks of missed classes, according to Emma. She adds that her professors were supportive of her participation, even though it has meant playing catch-up since her return.

“I’m taking a full course load this semester, but all my profs said I couldn’t miss this,” says Emma, who is also taking a minor in Political Science. “It worked out and now I’m working double-time.”

The Peterborough, Ontario native plans to complete her undergraduate degree in Marine Biology, but the trip reinforced her growing belief that her future lies in marine protection policy, rather than in science.

“I want to gear my future education to the policy side of things, as well as public education,” Emma says. “This experience really just solidified that.

“That was a perspective that seemed to be shared by many of the youth ambassadors I met from other parts of the world, that (policy and education) is where they’re seeing the biggest impact.”

That’s why Emma is strongly considering Dalhousie’s Marine Affairs Program for the next step in her education. “I think it would be a way to integrate everything I’ve learned,” she says.

“My undergraduate degree makes me science-literate, and I think that’s a good way work in between science and policy.”