The Erasmus+ project entittled "Supporting the development of socially-inclusive Blue Challenges in schools in the Mediterranean sea-basin" (BlueS_Med) aims at developing, testing and evaluating innovative approaches to integrate ocean/marine issues and challenges in the curriculum and educational activties of schools in different Mediterranean countries. With partners from France, Greece, Italy and Malta, combining expertise in education, marine science and policy - along with a strong track record in the development of ocean literacy initiatives for different target groups, the project will be implemented in four phases: - Phase I is a conception phase, focusing on the development of the Blue challenge framework that will guide the development and implementation of Blue Challenges at schools in the following year. It will help also consolidating the consortium and share experiences and practice among partners and countries;; - Phase II focuses on the development of the Blue challenge in thirteen schools associated to the consortium - designing the Blue challenge and developing innovative educational tools and material that wil be required for implementing the Blue challenge. This phase also include the selection of pupil ambassadors in each school (two per school) and the organisation of a transnational training of these pupils' ambassadors (accompanied by their teachers) to train them in the role they will have in communicating and disseminating the Blue Challenge activities and results . - Phase III is the practical implementation of the Blue challenge in the schools with support from partner organisations. It includes also the monitoring and evaluation of the blue school challenge to assess its impact and added value. - Phase IV aims at making a synthesis and disseminating the results of the project to wider audience in each country and the mediterranean sea basin scale, with in particular the organisation of national and Mediterranean Sea basin multiplier events. The project will build on the following principles: (a) co-building - ensuring children/pupils contribute to the co-design of "their" Blue challenge - putting co-responsibility and action at the center of their Blue Challenge; (b) interactive and proactive - making use of all e-tools and social medias to support implementation and peer-to-peer exchanges, while giving the priority to "practical activities" that give a feeling about the ocean and the human-ocean relationships; (c) inclusive - giving special attention to mobilise children from different social groups, to generate gender unbiased questions and to learning about the principle of democracy (discussing, listening, accepting while being still mobilised) when designing and implementing their Blue challenge; (d) sustainable - ensuring the footprint of the project and of the actions proposed under the Blue Challenge of each school is minimised - and that potential environmental and social ancilary benefits are delivered whenever possible and relevant. The project will deliver five key intellectual outputs (developed in English and translated in French, Italian and Greek - so as to facilitate dissemination within the different partner countries, in the Mediterranean sea basin and at the European scale): - Intellectual output I: The framework and guidance for the Mediterrean Blue challenge processes, (a) building in particular on a benchmarking of existing experiences in "bringing the sea" to the classroms and (b) proposing a systematic monitoring and evaluation of the blue challenges implementation so as to assess their added value and benefits; - Intellectual output 2: presenting the proposed Blue challenges for each individual school (13 in total) in terms of concepts, proposed activities, innovative educational material developed, planning and expected ouput - Intellectual output 3, summarising the results of the monitoring and evaluation of the Blue challenges implemented to assess their added value & impacts - Intellectual output 4: A Knowledge base of tested educational material for internalising the ocean in different curricula/education, facilitating its access to different groups so as to ensure the wider use and application in other schools - Intellectual output 5: A road map for supporting the uptake of Blue challenges in Mediterranean Sea basin schools (with specific country-specific annexes)
The main objectives of the project were as follows: -Testing monitoring tools. -Organizing and testing transnational exchanges among teachers, pupils, and partners from the same sea basin. -Developing educational materials and content that can be replicated and shared among project participants. -Learning from teachers' experiences, particularly regarding challenges and needs. -Educating pupils from the pilot schools about the ocean, with a specific focus on the various dimensions at play in the Mediterranean Sea basin. -Teaching pupils about potential actions they can take to preserve and protect the marine environment. -Advocating for the integration of Ocean Literacy into school curricula and national agendas at the policy level.
When the EU4Ocean coalition was established in 2020, one of its three communities was formed: The network of EU Blue Schools. As a spinoff of this initiative, the BlueS_Med project was created to test the concept and implement it in a regional sea basin, specifically the Mediterranean. The project involved pilot schools participating in various activities within this framework. The primary goal was to co-design and test implementation methods, as well as monitoring and evaluation tools for addressing challenges related to the ocean. The objective was to integrate "blue" topics into educational curricula. The project aimed to address several needs. Firstly, there was a lack of a common framework for these blue schools at both the EU and regional levels. Teachers lacked references and specific knowledge regarding ocean dimensions, while partners possessed the knowledge but not necessarily the pedagogical resources required for effectively teaching ocean literacy. Consequently, this project sought to foster collaboration between scientific and research partners and schools and teachers to better educate students about the ocean and emphasize the necessary efforts for its conservation.