Do you remember having a subject at school just for the oceans? Or even classes just on this topic? Do you know what Oceanic Culture is? Based on your experience, do you think a student leaves high school with basic knowledge about the oceans?
If your answers were “no”, relax, you are not alone! It was precisely for this reason that in 2002, educators started movements in the United States to encourage elementary and high school students to take more classes about the ocean.
In the following years, this discussion gained support from several conferences, recognizing the need to bring new generations of scientists, farmers, fishermen, businesspeople and political leaders closer to the Ocean.
This is how the Oceanic Culture (Ocean Literacy). And essential principles and concepts were defined, which began to be discussed in conferences every 2 years in the United States.
But does this discussion only happen in the USA?
Noa few years later, Oceanic Culture arrived in Europe, where the discussion entered the education and scientific dissemination planning agenda.
And since 2011, projects, events and international cooperation agreements have started to consider Oceanic Culture as a crucial subject to be addressed.
Therefore, the @unesco ea @ioc_unesco embraced the responsibility of addressing this issue on a global scale and developing tools for implementing the SDG14 (Life in Water) and the SDG4 (Quality Education) for the Ocean Decade (2021-2030).
But after all, what is oceanic culture?
Oceanic Culture emerges to captivate people, so that they feel close to the ocean, whether far away or next to it.
It also deals with knowledge about the influence of the effect of our actions on the Ocean and how the health of the ocean affects our lives.
Have you ever stopped to think: How do our everyday actions affect the oceans? How does ocean health affect our daily lives?
Your answer was probably “no” again! Don’t be scared! Most of us are not aware of how our everyday actions affect the health and sustainability of the Ocean and its many resources on which we depend. Nor do most of us recognize how the health of the Ocean affects our daily lives.
It is very easy to think about the Ocean when we are in front of it, but one of the biggest challenges of ocean education and public engagement is to penetrate and understand this vastness, both in size and in influence on our lives.
Therefore, Oceanic Culture appears to change these responses and perceptions about the Ocean, and show how important it is, increasingly, to include the fascinating blue in our culture!
Essential Principles of Oceanic Culture
Oceanic Culture has 7 essential principlesthey are:
- Earth has a global and very diverse ocean;
- Marine life and the ocean have a strong influence on the dynamics of the land;
- The ocean has an important influence on climate;
- The Earth is only habitable due to the ocean;
- The ocean supports an immense diversity of life and ecosystems;
- Humanity and the ocean are strongly interconnected;
- There is a lot to discover and explore in the Ocean.
These 7 principles are the results of what ocean science has dedicated itself to studying in recent decades and felt the desire to communicate and connect more with everyday life.
However, it is not just science that makes a shoal. Culture, education, local knowledge and experiences of people’s relationship with goods and services related to the ocean are also part of the assimilation of these subjects.
Thus, these principles exist to disseminate knowledge through different forms of teaching, formal or non-formal, so that they reach different people from different realities around the world.
In fact, today is National Science Day (July 8) and a beautiful day to celebrate and disseminate knowledge about Oceanic Culture.
And now you know what Oceanic Culture is? What actions in your daily life influence the Ocean? What influence does the Ocean have on your life?
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