Two Ocean Aquarium Academy: An Introduction to Ocean Literacy Programmes and a Marine Sciences Curriculum

Abstract

The Two Oceans Aquarium, a privately run institution, has quality education as a critical part of its vision. South Africa is an educationally challenged country with a highly diverse education landscape with extremes of both highly resourced and deeply impoverished schools. Over the past 20 years and against this backdrop, the Aquarium’s Environmental Education Foundation has developed an extensive Aquarium school excursion and outreach programme and a subsequent suite of holiday/weekend enrichment courses. Out of this enrichment programme a customised national Grade 10–12 Marine Sciences Curriculum has been written, has been approved by the South African Parliament and is being implemented at pilot schools in 2020. This chapter outlines the background to the development of this curriculum. Highlighted topics include geology, chemistry, meteorology, marine biology, marine ecosystems and marine sciences applications such as aquaculture human interactions with the ocean and the education sustainable development goals (ESD). Its focus is to prepare scholars by introducing a marine sciences knowledge base in preparation for further tertiary studies in the field. In addition, it is designed as a stand-alone subject which adequately challenges and nurtures students in the way that similar Grade 10–12 three-year courses do. This strategy has achieved a high reputation among many international ocean literacy peers. This chapter describes the Aquarium Marine Sciences Academy programmes and the curriculum. It illustrates the process used as the curriculum was developed and how it morphed into its current form. Reference is made to widely researched international marine science texts and curricula in the development of the Marine Sciences Curriculum. A wide range of consultation was undertaken at tertiary levels, including the USA’s Essential Ocean Literacy Principles and Fundamental Concepts and the emerging global Blue Economy. The onset of COVID-19 and subsequent lockdown has provided the necessity to offer several online courses.