Overcoming challenges to communicating current ocean science research to the public, particularly teachers and their students, is one of the main goals of the Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence (COSEE), a network funded by the National Science Foundation. COSEE West, one of 12 COSEE centers around the United States, has acted as a bridge and catalyst between ocean science researchers and the public in southern California for the past 7 years by creating a variety of models to adapt current ocean research to various levels of formal education and public audiences. Leveraging one lecture on current ocean science, teachers and the public were educated using three models. The lecture was open to the public, but scheduled as part of an educator workshop at a local aquarium, where it was video-taped and made available online along with activities from that workshop. It was also used as part of a 3-week, globally accessed, online educator workshop. Engagement in these models ranges from teachers interacting with scientists and learning lessons for use in the classroom to teachers bringing their students to lectures, engaging them in collecting data, and helping them share their findings with decision-makers at public meetings that are relevant to current issues in their community. This symposium contains the public science lecture, explanation of how it was leveraged in three education models, and an example of how ocean science research can inspire high school students to action through the engagement of their teachers.