The Ocean Vocabulary
A Moral Glossary for a Changing World
What words do we need for the Ocean we want to protect?
The words we use shape what we value and protect. Yet the Ocean is still too often discussed separately across conservation, economics and policy, and treated as something apart from human life. This glossary brings these perspectives into conversation with moral imagination.
Word of the day
Teaching guides
Every section of the glossary includes a teaching guide designed for a session of around an hour. Each guide sets out what participants should be able to do by the end, a question to explore together, an activity, and the Ocean Literacy principles it connects to.
The guides are written for ages 12 and over, with most suited to 14+, and can also be used with adult groups, including community organisations, congregations, and public workshops.
Words by Ocean Literacy principle
Teaching one of the seven UNESCO Ocean Literacy principles? Pick it to see the words that teach it, then present them or add them to your teaching pack.
About the Ocean Vocabulary
The Ocean sustains life in ways we are still learning to understand. It shapes climate, feeds communities and connects places across the planet. From coral reefs and mangroves to the deep sea and microscopic life, it is part of a vast living system on which every one of us depends.
Yet the language we use for the Ocean often tells only part of this story. We speak of resources, fish stocks, extraction, management and economic value. These words are useful, but they can narrow what comes into view. The Ocean is also home and memory. It is culture, inheritance and a community of life with value beyond what it provides to us.
This glossary grew from a simple question: what words do we need for the Ocean we want to protect?
The words gathered here draw from Faiths for Oceans work, including the Ten Inner Principles for Ocean Protection and the Blue Moral Economy, alongside research and practice from organisations working across ocean conservation, science, law and community stewardship. They bring scientific knowledge into conversation with faith and spiritual traditions, Indigenous and coastal knowledge, and emerging ideas about how the Ocean can be governed and cared for.
Some terms describe what is happening in the water. Others help us name the values and responsibilities that shape our response.
Here, marine heatwaves sit alongside humility. Ocean acidification meets sacred reciprocity. Marine protected areas are considered alongside justice and intergenerational responsibility. This is deliberate. Science can tell us what is changing, what is at risk and what may help. But knowledge alone does not decide how we respond. That also depends on what we value, what we believe we owe to other forms of life and what we choose to leave for those who come after us.
Consider a coral reef. Science can describe the remarkable partnership between coral animals, microscopic algae and the wider ecosystem they create. We can measure warming, bleaching and changes in biodiversity. But we can also recognise a reef as a living community built over generations, sheltering lives most of us will never see. The scientific and moral views do not compete. Together, they allow us to see more fully what is at stake.
This is why words matter. Language helps determine what becomes visible to us. What we learn to notice can change what we value, and what we value shapes what we are willing to protect, restore or leave undisturbed.
The Ocean Vocabulary is a living glossary. It will grow as science advances, as communities contribute other ways of knowing and as our relationship with the Ocean continues to change. Its purpose is not simply to define words, but to connect them, opening pathways into the knowledge, traditions and practical work behind them.
We offer it as an invitation to pay closer attention. To look beneath the surface and beyond familiar categories. To bring scientific understanding into conversation with moral imagination, and to see the Ocean more fully as a living world of which we are a part.
Links and references in the Ocean Vocabulary point to the work of other organisations. They are there so readers can go deeper. They do not mean that any organisation endorses this glossary, Faiths for Oceans or its positions, and including a link does not mean we endorse everything an organisation says or does. The definitions are Faiths for Oceans’ own. Names and logos belong to their owners.
Photographs licensed from Envato and composited by Faiths for Oceans.
How to use this glossary
What this is
The Ocean Vocabulary is a living, collective work. It brings together Faiths for Oceans research with knowledge shared by the communities and organisations we work alongside, drawing on science, faith, coastal knowledge and new thinking about our relationship with the sea.
Its sections move from the inner principles of care to the laws, economies and commitments shaping the Ocean’s future. As the glossary grows, we want the origins of each word to remain visible. If you suggest a word, we will credit its source and, where possible, connect readers to the tradition, community, research or practice behind it.
Browse by section, explore from A to Z, or search for a word directly. Open any entry to read its full definition, where it comes from, related terms and further reading. A different Word of the Day is also featured each day.
Teach with this
Every section includes a Teach with this guide for educators. Each guide tells you how much time to allow, what group size it suits and what students should be able to do by the end. It also includes a discussion question and an activity that can be used as written or adapted to your setting.
All eight guides are gathered under Teaching guides, where you can read them in sequence or print them as a single handout. You can also find the glossary terms connected to each of the seven Ocean Literacy principles.
Build your teaching pack
As you explore the glossary, you can collect words into your own teaching pack. Select the + at the top of any card to add it. The counter at the bottom of the page opens your pack, where you can give it a name, change the order of the words and remove any you no longer need.
Your teaching pack is saved on this device, so you can leave the site and return to it later.
Use a pack to prepare a lesson, lead a discussion, create a reading list or collect a set of related terms for further study.
Print, present and share
Print teaching pack turns your selection into a ready-to-use teaching resource. It includes a cover with the time and learning outcome for each guide, followed by every selected word with its image, definition and source. Relevant discussion questions and activities are included, together with a reference list for further reading.
If you only need one word, Print card creates a printable resource for that entry.
Present displays the words one at a time on a projector or shared screen, followed by the discussion question and activity. Move through the presentation with the arrow keys, a presentation clicker, a click or a swipe.
Copy link creates a direct link to a single word. When shared in a message or on social media, the link includes that word’s image.
Narrow the words
Sections
A to Z
Your teaching pack
A teaching pack is a set of words you gather as you read, printed as one handout: a cover with the time each guide needs and what students should be able to do by the end, a page for each word, and the discussion question and activity each section was written with.
Add a word with the + at the head of any card.