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Description
The growing concern regarding Ocean resources, environmental changes, biodiversity losses and habitat damage related to pollution leads to the need of global action towards the implementation of mitigation plans and strategies for the sustainability of the ocean, its resources and the impacts of human activities. Stimulating the interest of younger citizens in science is an important step to enable conscious intervention. However, most of the educational programs are aimed at students from elementary to middle school levels, being secondary school students somewhat left aside in what comes to environmental issues’ understanding and discussion promotion. To counter this trend, the project BlueWave proposes to promote the inclusion of Ocean Literacy in a secondary schools context directly through educational sessions oriented by the project members in seven Portuguese secondary schools integrated in the “Blue School” Network (or applicants to the network), and Teachers’ Training sessions. These actions
involve 350 students (50 per school) and 28 teachers (4 per school). The project entails four other activities: i) flash interactive learning to be performed between classes that consist of quizzes, contests and an app quiz that focus key aspects of Ocean literacy, ii) beach cleaning campaigns, iii) Blue Entrepreneurship Ideas Contest, and iv) nautical sports to be performed at the final event (e.g. canoeing, paddle and rowing). After participation in each activity, each student will get a stamp at his/her BlueWave passport.
The partner, ASPEA, is a NGO with 29-year experience in formal and non-formal environmental education, contributing with the expertise to develop the activities here proposed.
The complementarity between promoter and partner teams, considering each one’s expertise and experience, will be fundamental for the successful implementation of the project and allow its sustainability in time.