As part of the Three Seas program through Northeastern University, Kai Kopecky taught a two week, immersive field and lab course at the Friday Harbor field station in the San Juan Islands (WA) on conservation and restoration of marine systems that blended both evolutionary and ecological principles in conservation science. He led students through exercises in data science techniques using a data set on oyster reef restoration from his ESIIL postdoctoral project. Kai also taught students how to use structure-from-motion photography to construct 3D models of intertidal reefs and helped them develop conservation proposals on a topic of their choosing for their capstone projects.

In addition, he attended the Association for the Study of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) Aquatic Sciences meeting and gave a talk on how removing dead coral from the reef may be a promising conservation strategy to enhance coral resilience after coral bleaching events.