AquariumKids is a community of 300,000+ aquatic enthusiasts from around the world. Our mission is to ensure that kids and young adults play a crucial role in promoting aquatic education, defending aquatic life, and protecting aquatic ecosystems.
We educate the public. Our online content, which includes articles, videos, features, and care sheets, has been viewed over two million times. In addition, we are currently developing a free online course about freshwater ecology.
We defend aquatic life. We have saved hundreds of fish lives by first convincing a local carnival to switch from giving away goldfish to bettas (which require less space and are more easily cared for by new owners) and then convincing them to stop giving away fish altogether.
We protect the environment. Human influence is destroying aquatic ecosystems, and we fight to conserve these habitats. Our most recent work on this front includes creating a piece about climate change for Get Involved Foundation's Hack for Social Good as well as working with environmental clubs at Palo Alto High School to bring Jr Ocean Guardians’ No Straw November campaign to campus, collecting pledges from over 200 people to abstain from using single-use plastic straws during the month of November.
We connect people. AquariumKids serves as a platform to unite aquatic enthusiasts from all corners of the world. We unite people who love anything and everything aquatic, and our community is over 300,000 strong.
At the 2012 Duveneck Harvest Carnival, kids could win their very own pet goldfish by tossing ping-pong balls into cups. With inadequate care, many of these fish sadly passed away.
The next year, at the same carnival, we were prepared—the AquariumKids goldfish care sheet was available to the public and it was a success. Many of the goldfish survived and thrived as a result of the readily available information.
That was the beginning of AquariumKids. Since then, we have given away more care sheets, written more articles, and grown rapidly online.
In 2015, 2016, and 2017, kids could win bettas at the carnival instead of goldfish, so we created a betta care sheet. Again, the response was overwhelming and many families are still caring for their happy betta fish today.
In 2018, we approached the carnival organizers and convinced them to stop giving away fish as prizes altogether because many fish suffer as a result of inadequate care when they are given away as prizes.
In addition to our efforts in person at the carnival, AquariumKids has grown online. Our content, including our YouTube videos, has been viewed over two million times to date, and over 300,000 people follow us across various social media websites.