Anslee Kennedy: Bringing the Ocean to the Classroom

The Walker School · SIP, Spring 2025

Anslee shares how she figured out who her ocean education program was really for, and how she reached them.

Anslee started an ocean conservation nonprofit during the pandemic, when she was in sixth grade. In SIP, she focused on Ark Explorers, which brings ocean lessons into kindergarten through second-grade classrooms. She realized her real audience was the teachers and parents who decide what kids learn, and she tested everything from cold emails to printed postcards in teachers' mailboxes to reach them.

In this episode, Anslee talks about finding her true market, what her outreach response rates taught her, and her plans to bring Ark Explorers to a coastal city in college.

Her advice: "Reach out to anyone and everyone."

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