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Description
Increasing Ocean Literacy (OL) was identified as essential to enable ocean protection, in the short and long term, reversing its accelerated degradation and stimulating the blue economy. In Portugal, the Blue School is an OL program of Ministry of the Sea, which encourages schools and their teachers to work the Ocean in a formal (classroom) and non-formal context. However, the blue schools show a tendency to work the ocean outside the classroom, in approaches little focused on scientific knowledge about the ocean. There is also a very limited work of the ocean in the classroom by basic schools in general, including those in the countryside (with less adherence to the Blue School). This stems from the lack of up-to-date scientific knowledge by teachers and resources they can easily fit into students'' curricular needs. The OceanClass project aims to develop a handbook of scientific contents about the ocean and practical activities to support teachers in the classroom. The handbook is aimed at teachers from the Blue Schools and basic education in general, covering the first three basic learning cycles. The project team is composed of researchers with experience in training for OL, and will develop the OceanClass with teachers and students from three Northern Portuguese schools. The project includes holding training workshops on OL for teachers and students and ocean science days for the public. For its objectives, OceanClass contributes to UNESCO''s SDG 4 (Quality Education), SDG 14 (Protect Marine Life) and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals.
Summary of project results
ncreasing Ocean Literacy (OL) was identified as essential to enable widespread co-collaborative protection of the ocean, reversing its increasing degradation and stimulating the blue economy. The Blue School is an OL program created in Portugal that has been adopted at a global scale. It encourages teaching the ocean and ocean science in formal (classroom) and non-formal contexts. However, blue schools show a tendency to address the ocean only in the non-formal context with little link to scientific knowledge. There is also very limited work on the ocean in the classroom by basic schools in general, including those in the interior of the country (with less adherence to the Blue School). This situation arises from teachers'' lack of up-to-date scientific knowledge and tools that can be easily adapted. OceanClass was set to tackle these gaps, developing resources and advanced training for teachers and communication actions to them, their students and the society at large. Their ultimate goal was to support the teaching of ocean sciences to basic and secondary school students, while promoting change in education.
The project developed training workshops and accredited courses (five), resources to teach ocean science (digital guide, experimental activities, supporting videos, >ten), scientific publications (three) and participated in various events where communication actions were presented (nine) to raise emotional link to the ocean, awareness for its protection and promote behavioural change towards its sustainability. The outputs produced are highly needed and of wide application by the teacher community of the Portuguese Language Speaking Countries.
They gain increased relevance under the recent United Nations recommendation of including OL in school curricula and prepare teachers adequately for this with advanced training and resources. The recommendations from the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession aimed at transforming the future of this profession and were launched at the 14th Policy Dialogue Forum of the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030. In the words of the UN Secretary-General António Guterres “Teachers are central to nurturing every country’s greatest resource: the minds of its people. Yet today, we face a dramatic shortage of teachers worldwide, and millions of teachers who lack the support, skills and continuing training they need to meet the demands of rapidly changing education systems."