Ocean Literacy in Italian high schools. Where do we stand?
Previati M1, De Cantis S2, Milanese M3, Cerrano C4
1) Underwater Bio-Cartography (Ubica),Genoa Italy
2)Department of Economics, Management and Statistics-University of Palermo
3)Studio Associato Gaia, Genoa Italy
4)Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona Italy
The Italian school system is undergoing a thorough revision both in terms of organisation and curricula. In line with this, the Ministry of Instruction and Ministry of the Environment recently jointly mandated that “the environment” be included in teaching plans– clearly opening the door to Ocean Literacy (OL). To such an aim, and within the broader scope of the Horizon 2020 Green Bubbles project,a first step is to gauge whether OL is already present in Italian high schools, to what an extent and, based on expressed and/or identified needs, how to provide guidance and supporting tools. This is being done at three levels:
1) Teachers, based on interviews of a stratified sample(teachers of science and of humanities from the northern, central and sourthern areas of Italy; 4 cities per area – 2 coastal and 2 land-locked; 3 schools per city, targeting science-oriented high-schools*). Focus: perceptions, attitudes and needs towards OL in teaching plans.
2) Curricula, analysed to: identify topics related to OL, "weight" them compared to other topics and quantify the overall degree of interdisciplinarity.
3) Students, evaluating their OL at the end of the 5-y school programme. This will be measured as the distance from the 7 OL principles by a dichotomous multi-items scale (true/false), where there are only one true statement based on the principles(or subprinciples)and tree false statements.
The above will also highlight differences and commonalities in the attitudes and perceptions of teachers and students across Italy, and capture the difference between technical (science-based) vs.colloquial (culture-based) use of language.
* Italian high-schools are categorised based on the focal disciplines taught.
Green Bubbles has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 643712.
