Climate Resilience & Communities, a Report on NNOCCI Innovation Research

The National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation [NNOCCI] is a Community of Practice [CoP] dedicated to advancing the conversation on climate change, based on the principle that wide-scale training with proven communication techniques can change the national discourse around climate change to be more productive, creative, and solutions-focused.

NNOCCI  CoP is a network of individuals and organizations in formal and informal education, the social sciences, climate sciences, and public policy. By 2018, the community represented more than 184 institutions in 38 states, and over 40,000 people have participated in the training.

The CoP believes that through collaboration, it can continue to develop knowledge, techniques, community, and confidence to empower audiences to act on climate change. The CoP considers all members to be equal partners in the success of the initiative, and that all members have the ability to innovate and adapt, to share their successes and learnings with the community, and to contribute their work to the whole.

In 2016, the NNOCCI Research and Development committee acknowledged that initial efforts were successful and prioritized three areas for expansion: community-based organizational partnerships with the cultural institutions that had NNOCCI-trained  leadership; youth programming, and bilateral partnerships with other climate empowerment groups.

In service of these growth goals, in 2017, the New England Aquarium developed and received funding for four grant-funded initiatives to pursue research and pilot programming that would expand these aspects of climate communications to support innovation and skill development with the NNOCCI CoP. This report represents the results of that work.