Blue Teaching Fellowship

The Blue Teaching Fellowship is a pilot grant initiative to help support dynamic classroom teachers in Canada who are championing ocean-water-climate learning in their teaching practice and demonstrating innovation and impact in their school and community. 

Objective

The Blue Teaching Fellow initiative aims to support peer mentoring – teachers inspiring teachers – through sharing insights on what’s working, lessons learned, tested resources, and collaboration opportunities.  By creating spaces for peer-to-peer exchange, the Blue Teaching Fellow initiative will help to:

  • Strengthen educator confidence and capacity in teaching about the ocean
  • Expand access to made-in-Canada ocean-water-climate learning resources
  • Contribute to broader national environmental learning goals 

What will Blue Teaching Fellows do?

  • Apply the grant to support innovative teaching practice and learning experiences with their students that deepen understanding and community action
  • Contribute pedagogical resources and outputs from their teaching practice to the Blue Learning Lab, and provide insights to strengthen the Blue Learning Lab
  • Facilitate a webinar and/or conference presentation on ocean-water-climate education to teachers across Canada on collaborative platforms and events
  • Contribute to an informal community of practice with peer educators
  • Mentor future fellows

2026 Blue Teaching Fellow: Karycia Mitchell

My name is Karycia Mitchell. I am a science educator currently living, working, and learning on the traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, in Victoria, BC. My teaching journey began after earning my B.Sc. in Combined Honours Chemistry and Oceanography (2001), and I recently completed my M.Ed. in Science Education (2022).

Over the past two decades as a secondary teacher in BC, I have taught nearly every science or math course across Grades 9-12. I strive to deliver curricular content through an applied lens, so that students can appreciate the relevance to the world around them. I am excited to continue promoting marine and aquatic education as a Blue Teaching Fellow with the Centre for Ocean Literacy Collaboration (COLC). 

 

Recognitions:

  • Northwest Aquatic and Marine Educators (NAME) Outstanding Marine/Aquatic Educator Award (2024)
  • National Marine Educators Association (NMEA) Outstanding Teacher Award (2025)

Learn about Karycia and the Marine STEM cohort program that she co-founded at the high school in British Columbia where she teaches:

"Our secondary-level Marine program is academic focused and reimagines the Life Sciences (Biology) 11 and Chemistry 11 curricula through an entirely marine and aquatic lens, integrating Place-Based Learning and First Peoples Ways of Knowing, while satisfying graduation requirements and post-secondary pre-requisites."

Karycia Mitchell