Team BEACH Workshop:

44th International Sea Turtle Society Symposium 2026 – Kona, Hawaii

Since its launch in 2020, Team BEACH (BE A CHangemaker) has grown into a global network of sea turtle conservation projects that collaborate, share ideas and resources, and co-host educational webinars. While many organizations conduct outreach in their communities, few are able to design programs with explicit behavior-change goals and structured evaluation plans. To help bridge that gap, the Team BEACH workshop at the 44th International Sea Turtle Symposium brought together sea turtle conservationists and behavior-change experts to share best practices, instructional materials, and hands-on guidance for developing practical, measurable action plans.

In preparation for ISTS44, we invited members of the Team BEACH network to submit pressing, real-world conservation challenges from their communities that could be addressed through targeted behavior-change strategies. These submissions formed the basis for four case studies used throughout the workshop.

Following an introductory presentation from Team BEACH social scientists Rachel Smith and Kelley Anderson of Human Nature Group, participants learned the fundamentals of designing an effective outreach and behavior-change campaign—from understanding audiences and barriers to selecting strategies that lead to measurable impact. Afterward, the ~30 attendees divided into small groups to analyze each case study and collaboratively design tailored behavior-change programs.

By the end of the workshop, attendees had learned new behavior change techniques that they could apply to issues in their communities and they created applicable behavior change campaigns that were returned to the projects that submitted the case studies.

All of the materials presented at the workshop are shared below.

Tools and resources

Powerpoint Presentation

Contains information on useful behavior change theories, do’s and don’ts when designing behavior change campaigns, and examples of successful campaigns.

Participant worksheet

Step by step process for designing a behavior change campaign