Curated by the Education and Outreach Working Group, this is a living document.
This collection is aimed to help educators include the ocean in their practice. The ocean has been oddly overlooked in school systems. With a burgeoning world population and recognition of ocean health’s importance to all life, education is a key tool, to help move us ‘towards the ocean we need for the future we want’. We are all ocean people, no matter where we live on this blue planet, and ocean literacy is about our reciprocal relationship with the ocean: ‘an understanding of ocean influence on us, and our influence on the ocean’. We depend on understanding how the ocean functions.
The term ocean literacy coined in the USA is now recognized internationally and the Ocean Science Literacy Framework made up of seven essential principles and fundamental concepts was developed through consensus in a collaborative process spanning a decade. See ocean science literacy principles below usually referred to as ocean literacy principles.
The ocean made the Earth habitable.
Canadian ocean science literacy embraces the OL framework yet extends beyond its science content to embrace 21st century pedagogy. The ocean suits a multidisciplinary approach and Canadians broadly support including more than science in defining Canadian ocean literacy. As Canadians we are still learning to respect diverse competencies and ways of knowing and specific Truth and Reconciliation calls to action, counter our tragic history of racism and residential school legacies to provide opportunities to decolonize ocean literacy. A vital difference between American, European and other international versions of ocean literacy is that Canadians are working to responsively value and respect Traditional Indigenous Knowledge and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. These laws and ways of knowing and sustaining span very long time frames and bring different worldviews into Canadian definitions of ocean literacy. Canadians look to diverse Indigenous peoples for important leadership in further developing what Canadian ocean literacy means.