Ocean Literacy: Sea Culture, Blue Careers & Protecting the Mediterranean Monk Seal

This project has been a collaborative effort from before it came into fruition through virtual, weekly classes. Individuals involved in education, archaeology, scuba diving and marine biology lent their expertise throughout the development of our school’s inaugural ocean literacy curriculum. The dynamic lessons have included topics of Underwater Cultural Heritage, Greek sea culture, blue careers and biodiversity and have been incorporated into the English class of the eighth-grade students of the Haseotes Middle School of the American Farm School. Students were tasked with investigating about sites of Underwater Cultural Heritage in Greece, exploring global citizen science initiatives and, to cap it off, design an informational poster for the protection of the critically endangered Meditterenean Monk Seal to be distributed around scuba diving centers and public information centers in the heart of the seal’s territory- the Northern Sporades archipelago, Thessaloniki and Athens, respectively. We are looking forward to cap it off with a beach clean up focusing on microplastics and data collection in June to be able to bring our virtual classes to the field.