Leveraging ocean identity in education to impact students' conservation practices

Abstract

Previous research on the outcomes of environmental/marine education programmes has focused primarily on changes in knowledge and attitudes. However, students' knowledge and attitudes do not necessarily directly predict outcomes of education programmes but rather serve as a proxy. Instead of focusing on content knowledge, this chapter shares findings from a study on environmental identity and discusses how the finding can be applied to marine education programmes to foster a strong ocean identity. An ocean identity is how people view themselves specifically in relation to an ocean environment. A student's ocean identity takes into account non-traditional variables in education such as how students talk about relationships with non-human species, how values and life goals relate to the environment, and emotions expressed related to environmental fears and threats. Implications for practice and exemplary methods for fostering a strong ocean identity are shared. Examples include evaluating curriculum for potential biases related to values, focusing on self-transcendent reasons for behaviour change rather than monetary rewards, highlighting similarities between humans and other species rather than focusing on only differences, taking students outside to learn about the ocean, and learning to recognize when students are using coping strategies to deal with fears and threats related to the ocean.