University Marine Initiative (UMI)

UMI is an initiative to encourage the communication of Marine Science within the OIST community and beyond to the wider community of Okinawa

Join the conversation and contribute to marine science education in Okinawa on our Slack channel

Marine Scientists of OIST

At OIST we have a number of researchers students and staff with a passion for marine science and experience within various fields. UMI will act as a hub for OISTers to discuss marine issues in Okinawa and organize events that encourage more understanding and a healthy attitude towards the ocean and the species that inhabit it.

Science Education Outreach Partners

The External Engagement section of OIST maintains a strong relationship with the local community through organized activities where members of OIST visit schools or join in with culturaly significant events. Through marine science related activities UMI will build stronger bonds between current local partners as well as to reach new groups in Okinawa with the help of the Community Relations Section.

The Science Education and Outreach section of the OIST Graduate School are dedicated to fostering high school and middle school students’ interests and consideration to pursue a future career in science. UMI is a proud partner of their SHIMA program.

Latest Posts

  • Virtual Reef Walks

    UMI Reef Rangers went out for the first official reef walk of 2020 on June the 5th. Due to COVID this was just a training exercise for future reef walks that include classes of school children. 

    As well as training this gave us an oppertunity to collect images to build a virtual reef walk and footage to create a promotional video.

  • Afuso Jr Highschool Outreach

    Core members of the University Marine Initiative visited Afuso Jr Highschool in Onna-son to teach marine ecology and ocean conservation.

    Afuso Jr Highschool is situated right in front of the beautiful Afuso beach so we decided to take the lesson outside.

    The connection between these students and their ocean ecosystems was extremely encouraging and is in no doubt partly down to their accessibility to such a beautiful and well maintained beach.

More Posts