The Blue School Program: A Model for Holistic Ocean Literacy Education

Costa, Raquel Lorenz; Faria, Cláudia

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/101437

Use this identifier to reference this record.

Name:	Description:	Size:	Format:
Costa&Faria_2025_sustainability.pdf		3.91 MB	Adobe PDF	Download

Send Feedback

Authors

Costa, Raquel Lorenz

Faria, Cláudia

Abstract(s)

The Blue School Program is an educational initiative to enhance ocean literacy (OL) by fostering understanding and awareness of the ocean’s importance among students, teachers, and local communities. Through a holistic, interdisciplinary, and intercultural approach, it integrates scientific, cultural, and ethical dimensions of ocean education. This perspective paper examines the program’s implementation in Portugal, emphasizing its contribution to crucial educational domains such as sustainability education, scientific literacy, and citizenship education. The findings highlight notable achievements, including increased school and community engagement and the establishment of robust publicprivate partnerships, while also addressing challenges such as resource constraints and geographic disparities. By situating the Blue School Program within broader educational frameworks and analyzing its limitations and enablers, this paper offers insights and recommendations to support the collaborative development of Blue School networks and OL initiatives in diverse educational contexts.

Keywords

Ocean literacy Holistic education Blue School program Education for sustainable development Scientific literacy Citizenship education Interdisciplinary learning

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/101437

Citation

Costa, R. L., & Faria, C. (2025). The Blue School program: A Model for holistic ocean literacy education. Sustainability, 17(2), 661. https://doi.org/10.3390/su17020661