Educating for the marine environment: Challenges for schools and scientists

Highlights: • Environmental education is essential to achieve sustainability. • Marine education is an important part of environmental education. • Marine education struggles to find a place in the school curriculum in most places. • Marine scientists need to be promote the importance of marine education in schools. • Ocean Literacy contains key principles and concepts for learners of all ages. - Abstract: Environmental education has long been recognized as critical for achieving environmental awareness, values and attitudes, skills and behaviour consistent with sustainable development and for effective participation in environmental decision-making. Since the Declaration of the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment concerns about marine pollution and ecotoxicology, among other environmental challenges, should be included in environmental education. However, in the more than forty years since this significant environmental Declaration, marine education has struggled to find a place in the school curriculum of most countries, even though issues such as climate change, chemical contamination of marine environments, coastal eutrophication, and seafood safety continue to threaten human and other species' well-being. This viewpoint discusses how marine education is marginalized in school education, and how marine specialists need to embed school education in their action plans. Particular questions include: who should be educated, about what, where and with what goals in mind?