Summer 2024 – Fall 2025
Rosenstiel School Library, Virginia Key

The H₂O: Hopeful, Healthy Oceans program combines the power of science, communication, and art to capture and share the importance and beauty of Florida’s imperiled marine ecosystems. While it is no secret that Florida’s majestic coastal ecosystems are being impacted by climate change and local disturbances, the program focuses on the actions being undertaken to ensure their recovery and persistence.

The summer of 2023 was the warmest in recorded history, with sea temperatures reaching 100 degrees, causing the most severe coral bleaching and mortality event on record. Reports on coral mortality due to climate change and local stress factors, such as disease and storms, have dominated the narrative and caused much ecological grief among researchers, conservationists, and ocean lovers.

At H₂O, we felt the need to flip the narrative and highlight the beauty and importance of our remaining coastal ecosystems, since we need these ecosystems as much as they now need us. We found no better way to do this than by asking children and adolescents to show us what they love about the oceans, giving us one more reason to protect them. So, we decided to focus on optimism and beauty and created this art-meets-science program to celebrate our oceans. Through the eyes of young artists, we share the beauty of our coral reefs and their inhabitants while underscoring the pressing need to ensure their survivorship.

Click to access some of the artworks currently on view.

The art exhibited as part of H₂O was created by young Miami artists from grades K–12 whose works motivate us to build a better future for our youth. In 2023, members of Dr. Diego Lirman’s Rescue a Reef program visited local schools and after-school programs, where scientists shared a presentation on coral reef ecology and conservation followed by a guided art-making activity. The artworks the kids created was first displayed in January 2024 at the University of Miami’s Lakeside Expo Center in upcycled coral nursery trees to highlight their creativity alongside our reef restoration and conservation research. This event was incredibly inspiring, and we were overwhelmed by the support and enthusiasm we received from the more than 300 attendees.

The H₂O artworks now find a fitting home at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School Library, where world-leading coral reef scientists dedicate their lives to studying the ecology and biology of coral reefs, the threats they face, and to developing strategies to ensure their persistence. The pieces on display were curated by Mrs. Laura Lirman, a Miami artist with a passion for kids’ art.

For more information on the Rescue a Reef research and conservation programs as well as the H₂O program, please visit https://rescueareef.earth.miami.edu/index.html.

This installation was created in partnership with the University of Miami Libraries Exhibition program.