An innovative approach to teaching marine sciences

Abstract

I have argued that the world's oceans contitute a kind of last frontier of development which merits a much larger focus than it is now given in existing elementary and secondary curricula. Secondly, the world's oceans constitute a unique and essential element in our biosphere which modern industrial civilization has been treating indifferently, even callously; that it is high time to raise the Ievel of consciousness in our own and coming generations so as to conserve the natural role of the seas in the maintenance of aquatic and terrestrial life forms. Thirdly, marine education cannot be left as a small part of a standard science currículum if we are to achieve the goal of a marine-literate new generation following in our footsteps. Both in terms of subject content as well as in occasions of emphasis, marine education must break out of science and become multidisciplinary, polycultural, and coetaneous, bridging generations and cultures with awareness and concern for matters of the sea.