3 Grand Challenges Facing the Ocean: Week 1

We will be focusing a lot on the Grand Challenges course this week. You will be picking your topic and group at the beginning of the week so you can get started on your Scholarly Project (draft due Friday). After this week, the two courses will be more blended together.

Picking your group and research topic

While we will be covering all of these topics and more throughout the course, by picking one of the following, you are committing to that group for your Scholarly Project, Legacy Project, and 1-Pager Policy Briefing. You will get a debrief on these three topics in class, and then will be choosing your topic and group to get started. If you have another topic that is relevant to the course that is not listed here, you may form a group and choose it after confirming with your instructors. Each group must have 3-4 students.

Topic 1: Ocean Acidification & Pollution

Topic 2: Overexploitation & Resource Management

Topic 3: Marine Law & Governance

Use this handout for the in class work.

Week 1 Homework

Readings and Resources: for your homework this week you will be reading, watching, or listening to all of the resources listed under your group’s topic. You will need to find peer reviewed sources for your Scholarly Project, so these are just a starting point with some more accessible resources. If you have extra time, you may want to peruse the resources listed under the other group topics as well.

• • Topic 1
    • Ocean Acidification: The oyster paradox (cbc.ca)
    • Ocean Acidification: The Darkening Sea (Kolbert, 2006)
    • Marine Pollution: Visual Feature | Beat Plastic Pollution (unep.org)
  • Topic 2
    • Overexploitation: Overfishing by industrial fisheries must be tackled, says fisheries researcher Daniel Pauly (knowablemagazine.org)
    • Resource Management: B.C. study links killer whale decline to lack of energy rich fatty salmon | CBC News
    • Indigenous Resource Management: Lepofsky & Caldwell 2013
  • Topic 3
    • Marine Governance: Extending legal rights to nature could help counter biodiversity collapse, says environmental lawyer
    • Marine Law & Governance: Episode 5: Waves of Extraction | The Outlaw Ocean | CBC Podcasts | CBC Listen
    • Canadian Water Governance: Arsenault et al 2018