The North Carolina Reserve offers educational programs for K-12 school groups, teachers, the general public, and special interest groups. The Reserve education program goal is to promote estuarine literacy by increasing humans' understanding of natural estuarine systems, their connections to them, and the benefits derived from them. All education, training, and outreach activities are designed to enhance public awareness of the importance of estuarine systems and provide opportunities for public education and interpretation. A critical aspect of these efforts is the linkage of education to science and stewardship.

The reserve’s  K-12 student education program provides students with hands-on, inquiry-based learning opportunities where the content is focused on estuarine habitats, organisms or coastal issues. Teachers may bring their classes to the reserve for two-hour interpretive nature hikes. Education staff also offer hands-on learning activities such as seining for fish, conducting shore profiles, or testing water quality. For schools that cannot travel, the reserve offers a variety of classroom-based programs that are led by reserve education staff on estuarine-related topics. The reserve also provides K- 12 teachers with written, estuarine-based, curricular material for both classroom and field-based activities. In addition to the curriculum, the reserve produces educational posters, activity books, Newspapers in Education inserts, DVDs and a variety of estuarine-based informational brochures.

The purpose of the Reserve’s professional development program for teachers is to increase the number of teachers trained to teach students about estuaries and coastal ecosystems. The Reserve accomplishes this through workshops and by providing supplementary curricular materials. Teacher professional development workshops target formal and informal educators across the State as well as pre-service teachers.

The community education and outreach program strives to increase public awareness of the goals and mission of the reserve and to enhance an understanding of estuarine systems and processes among the general public including pre-school children, local citizens, and visitors of coastal North Carolina. Outreach activities include: public field trips; summer camps; workshops, seminars, science symposia on coastal topics; participation at environmental festivals and fairs; and production of educational materials.