Sophia Netterfield, Educator and Coordinator for Ocean Wise, showcases the Sea Dome for day campers at the Northside Community Centre YMCA on Friday. (rdnewsNOW/Alessia Proietti)

By Alessia Proietti

Ocean Wise conservation

Inflatable Sea Dome takes YMCA campers on underwater journey

Jul 9, 2022 | 9:58 AM

Red Deer day campers at the Northside Community Centre YMCA (6391 76 St.) took a trip under the sea on Friday.

“We are bringing the ocean to Red Deer today,” said Kaja Verret Holding, Assistant Manager for the Ocean Wise Mobile Programs Team. “We’re looking to help them learn more about their oceans and help them understand how their daily lives are connected to the ocean. So even though we’re far away, the waterways here do all lead to the ocean.”

Ocean Wise is a non-profit ocean conservation organization whose mission is to “empower action to protect and restore the world’s oceans” through in-house research and other educational programming.

Their latest educational tool is the Ocean Wise Sea Dome, what they call an immersive ocean experience and pop-up ocean venue.

The planetarium-style six-metre inflatable dome projects inside 360-degree 4K cinematic footage of the ocean and its creatures. Verret Holding says the various shots of the sea settings, such as coral reefs and kelp forests, were all taken by divers and help to make youth feel as if they were underwater.

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The experience, the organization says, is designed to highlight connections between ocean health, climate change, and daily life and get kids excited about ocean conservation.

The day also included marine artifacts and sessions on the Arctic.

“I honestly think it’s a really unique opportunity to learn about stuff that maybe they’ve never learned about and it’s also fun. With the ocean dome, it’s something that they may have never seen before,” said Derian Geddes, Camp Councillor at the Northside Community Centre YMCA.

The camps’s arrival in Red Deer marks the ending of its first week.

Verret Holding says kids learned some ways to help practice ocean conservation, such as reducing the use of plastics, living a more minimalistic lifestyle by purchasing less and reusing, preventing and picking up litter, and, as they age, joining more pubic movements for the cause.

Red Deer is one seven locations across the Sea Dome’s four-month western Canadian tour, beginning in British Columbia through to Saskatchewan.

The Ocean Wise Sea Dome is part of Ocean Wise’s Mobile Programs as well as part of Waves of Change, a youth action and climate change initiative coalition between Ocean Wise, GreenLearning, TakingITGlobal, and the Centre for Global Education funded by the Government of Canada.