LEARN-TEACH: a pilot to boost Ocean Literacy in High Schools

Description

Raising the Ocean Literacy of all levels of society is now a policy priority for the European Commission. The long-term objective is better appreciation of the socio-economic benefits and ecosystem services that the marine environment provides, and encourage better stewardship of the seas.

One long-term, and potentially self-sustainable, concept is to put sufficient mutual incentives in place so that researchers, teachers and students in high-schools science and mathematics classes accessorize school curricula with the latest marine research results and knowledge.

Summary of preliminary teachers consultations at Copenhagen International School suggest that teachers are prepared and willing to include recent marine research, research data and knowledge in high school science classes and carry over the research data to mathematics/statistics classes and exercises. However the active participation of researchers is sought to provide guidance and translation of latest research findings, and point to real data sources.

LEARN-TEACH Pilot‘s main objective is to test a long-term scalable and locally applicable solution for engaging young people in marine environment issues and challenges.

LEARN-TEACH sustainability of concept relies on mutual training and clear mutual incentives. For the teachers, it allows an opportunity to understand and inject recent research in the school curriculum in order to “increase the level of knowledge among the population of the marine environment”.

For the researchers, LEARN-TEACH is tailored as a tool for outreach and dissmination, as well as exposing young marine researchers to the challenges of translating and communicating research to non-academic
audiences, and potentially an alternative career.

The presentation will demonstrate how LEARN-TEACH can be embedded in every research grant in any EU region, and how it can add a competitive edge at research grant proposal evaluation.

The content is based on the “Blue Schools” initiative of Horizon 2020 SeaChange Consortium, an EC Ocean Literacy project (www.seachangeproject.eu)

Period	27 Apr 2017
Event title	EGU General Assembly 2017: European GEosciences Union 2017
Event type	Conference
Location	Vienna, AustriaShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International