Dr Prue Francis1, Ms Catia Freitas1, Ms Madi O’Brien1, Dr Paul Venzo2, Dr Alecia Bellgrove3
1Deakin University, Queenscliff, Australia, 2Deakin University, Waurn Ponds, Australia, 3Deakin University, Warrnambool, Australia
Australia’s coastal and marine habitats are threatened by climate change and rapid and unsustainable development. The temperate Australian coastline, the Great Southern Reef, is no exception to these threats. This 8000km stretch of coastline is considered a biodiversity hotspot, yet the broader community has little awareness of the importance and value of this system. One step to ensure we are sustaining healthy marine systems, is to raise awareness of the ocean and create an ocean literate society. Given children are our future ocean custodians, schools are ideally placed to begin this endeavour, however, the Australian Curriculum offers minimal opportunity to learn about the ocean. We evaluated current Australian trends in ocean literacy by surveying primary school teachers and informal education providers. Results show that whilst informal education programs are implementing ocean literacy principles in their programs, primary school educators are rarely incorporating marine science. If schools are not engaging with marine education programs, ocean literacy is likely to be limited in schools. An overcrowded curriculum and lack of knowledge and resources were the top identified barriers for not incorporating ocean literacy. We seek to improve one of these barriers by evaluating if a familiar resource, such as picture books, could be a viable solution. We found that ocean-themed picture books linked 91% of the time with the Australian Curriculum but local, temperate stories were lacking. This led to the production of our own picture book which is being used as a case study to evaluate the effectiveness of learning about the ocean.
Biography:
Prue’s marine education background and expertise translates into her research interest that focuses on the extent to which ocean literacy is being taught in schools across Australia and exploring innovative methods to promote ocean literacy through research, education and engagement. Prue actively promotes ocean literacy through regular appearances on radio and has recently co-authored a children’s book called The Great Southern Reef.
