Education Today Education Today Magazine
Over 1,000 children from UK schools facing the greatest barriers to outdoor education have been reached with a new suite of free ocean literacy resources — and thousands more are set to follow.
This comes at a time when teachers are being asked to prepare for more meaningful climate and sustainability education through forthcoming curriculum changes, while also meeting Gatsby Benchmarks requiring them to integrate career and workplace relevance into academic lessons.
The Ocean Education Hub, is a free resource which is now available to primary and secondary schools across the UK to help teachers make those connections from a leading marine conservation charity Blue Marine Foundation.
The hub gives teachers instant access to curriculum-linked digital resources and continuing professional development. Selected schools facing the greatest barriers to outdoor education can also access free coastal field trips, ocean advocacy filmmaking workshops and expert-led careers talks. The offer combines materials teachers can use in lessons with opportunities for pupils to see marine conservation in practice.
The programme was piloted in 10 schools across England. In its first year, careers talks reached over 700 students, hundreds of whom subsequently said they wanted to pursue a career in marine science or conservation. More than 300 students also took part in free field trips and filmmaking workshops.
Blue Marine is now calling on 20,000 primary and secondary schools across England to join the Education Hub and add marine science to the curriculum.
Victoria Turner, Education Lead at Blue Marine, said: “Learning about the ocean is one of the most powerful ways to make climate and sustainability education tangible and solution-led for young people. For pupils in coastal towns, it’s also personal: we want them to see that a career on the coast is full of opportunities and can meaningfully inform their sense of identity and marine heritage.”
The programme addresses two practical needs: resources that connect climate and sustainability to the curriculum, and experiences that show pupils how that learning relates to work. Field trips introduce pupils to live conservation projects, filmmaking workshops give them a way to communicate ocean issues, and careers talks introduce the jobs connected to marine science and conservation.
For pupils aged 7 to 16 in coastal communities, including Cornwall, Sussex and Devon, the programme aims to make those career possibilities locally relevant. Its focus is on helping young people understand the opportunities connected to their coastline, with additional experiences targeted at schools that face the greatest barriers to taking learning beyond the classroom.
