Fostering Ocean-Literate Generations: The Portuguese Blue School

Abstract

The last two decades produced a wealth of work revealing the pressing need to increase ocean literacy in support of ocean sustainability and governance. The aim of this chapter is to present the Portuguese Blue School programme, an initiative born in response to the above need, to prepare ocean-literate citizens and support the development of the blue economy. The Blue School PT programme promotes an integrated political strategy for marine education capable of engaging all sea sectors, with the goal of improving the level of ocean literacy in the short and long term. Headed by the Ministry of Sea, the Blue School is supported by universities, governmental and non-governmental organizations, municipalities, industries and companies. Over the different sections we present an overview of the ocean literacy context underlying the creation of the Blue School, the Blue School concept and functioning and the results of its first years of implementation. This programme, fitting the objectives of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 4, 14 and 17, accounts for the national strategies for sea and education and the evolving view of ocean literacy, addressing identified barriers to its implementation in schools.