Using+Folklore+to+Promote+Ocean+Literacy+(Nick+Lawrence)

Using Folklore to Promote Ocean Literacy

The 6th World Environmental Education Congress developed this module among many others released together in one pamphlet. The specific authors of this module are Carlie Wiener, Barbara C. Bruno and Jim Foley.

This specific edition released by the Environmental Congress was focused solely on the ocean and marine life. The overall purpose of the congress is to convene persons who have a stake environmental and sustainability education and have them share their knowledge and experience.

This question is somewhat redundant but the educational mission of the organization is to provide educational material for teachers to use. This particular edition has several articles about teaching about the ocean in the classroom. Also several learning modules are provided. The overall philosophy of the congress is to provide environmental and sustainability knowledge to educators and the public in general.

This module has 4 distinct ocean literary principles it is designed to teach. They are as follows “The ocean and life in the ocean shape the features of Earth.” “The ocean makes Earth habitable.” ‘The ocean supports a great diversity of life and ecosystems.” “The ocean and humans are inextricably interconnected.” With each principle a myth or folklore is used to introduce some concept dealing with the ocean. The myths themselves do not directly contain the ocean literary principle but can be extrapolated through a lens of sustainability. The following learning activities reinforce some element form the intro myth while fully supporting the literary principle.

I think the curriculum is appropriately designed. At first I was skeptical at the attempt to use folklore to teach ocean literacy but the myths chosen proved surprising relevant to sustainability in the ocean. The myths chosen and the following learning activities adequately teach the ocean literacy principles the module outlines.

Yes. This module illustrates how the ocean has many different to connections to the physical landscape of the earth and life on the earth. The ocean is a complex and vast reservoir of life that as always been there as a resource for humans. The preservation of this resource is important and this is outlined by the learning module.

There isn’t really anything that could be added to this module without making it have too much information to convey. It already has four separate learning activities in it. Adding more to module would give it a too high of information density.