Partnering with local schools, social projects, and environmental nonprofits organizations in small-scale fishing (SSF) communities, Coast 2 Coast enables rural students to explore their ancient oceans & ancestral villages as resilient researchers and skilled communicators, using transmedia tools, community-based participatory research approaches, and impact storytelling techniques to illustrating SSF’s importance for ocean-human health and sustainable futures. Our transdisciplinary team engages local youth as impact storytellers through photography, photojournalism, comic, stop-motion animation, street art, murals, filmmaking and novel “edutainment” weeklong workshops, 6-month programs, and touring school festivals that foster digital literacy, geospatial knowledge, entrepreneurship, and awareness around the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication, or the SSF Guidelines, the first international instrument to protect artisanal fisheries. Guided by the SSF Guidelines, local students identify their fishing villages’ strengths, investigate changes, daylight challenges, and brainstorm potential solutions. Participants co-create their own stories rooted in traditional knowledge, fortified by science, and expressed through students’ imaginations that highlight their ocean and community as a marine social-ecological system. Through partnerships, we work to implement these youth-driven, community-based solutions for healthy seas and SSF communities.