This design challenge moves your students from passive to active learners through a cross-curricular, hands-on team challenge in direct correlation to real-world issues of water conservation. By creating prototype desalination plants and companies, students in grades 6-8 will understand how substances are separated, the need for freshwater conservation, and ultimately how a desalination plant works.

Water, water everywhere...could the ocean be a reasonable source of freshwater for our communities? Philippe Cousteau travels to the West Basin Municipal Water District’s Water Education Center in Redondo Beach, CA.. Here Darryl Ramos-Young explains the process of desalination and the results of a multi-year pilot study examining the benefits and challenges of turning saltwater into freshwater.

In Southern California, about 80% of the freshwater supply is used for farming. Philippe and Ashlan Cousteau meet with executive chef and farmer Adam Navidi from Future Foods Farms in Brea, CA. Chef Adam uses an innovative farming design called aquaponics to grow lettuce, vegetables, and even fish with less water than the average family uses at home on a daily basis.

Going Blue: A Teen Guide to Saving Our Oceans, Lakes, Rivers, & Wetlands provides a close look at our oceans and waterways and our role in protecting this water planet.

Washington’s Puget Sound provides a look into the future of coastal habitats across the world, due to the natural cycle of upwelling that occurs here. Join Philippe Cousteau as explores the links between the organisms that we rarely consider, such as oysters, to those that are symbols of the vast unknown of the ocean, like orca.

EXPLORE: Have you ever wanted to work at a Marine Sanctuary? Have you ever even heard about our country’s Marine Sanctuaries? Learn more about life as the Research Coordinator at the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary.