The International Ocean-Climate School of the Ocean Open University works for ocean, coast & climate literacy exploring the interrelations and influences among oceans, coastal processes, climate change, human activity & sustainability and drawing on active- & experiential-learning methodologies, such as participatory simulation, educational gaming and debriefing.
About[edit | edit source]
Open Ocean University
The Mediterranean and climate change: Impacts, people, action
The International Oceans-Climate School will be an exploratorium. Everyone with an interest in the well-being of our oceans, especially the Mediterranean, is invited to apply. The School will be of interest to organizations that and people who have a stake in planning and acting for the future of the oceans, especially the future of the Mediterranean, as it will be shaped by accelerating global warming and climate change. We will work at the intersection or nexus of oceans and climate.
The Oceans-Climate School is an official event of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO, as part of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.
The school will be an exciting opportunity for stakeholders to become more ocean-climate literate and skilled; they will:
- learn about the complexity and interactions related to the climate impacts, human, biological and physical resources, sustainability, policy, governance, ethical dimensions, health issues and cultural diversity of the Mediterranean basin and its coasts under the impact of severe, inevitable global warming, driving climate change *;
- become actors in the definition, building and writing of roadmaps** of policies and actions that need to be adopted and undertaken to adapt to and mitigate against climate change in the Mediterranean basin;
- become familiar with methodologies, such as issues- and solutions-oriented foresight methods and data-driven, decision-focused, participatory simulation (Companion Modelling), that enable stakeholders to participate creatively, collectively and constructively to unravel the complex web of interrelated issues and to make decisions under conditions of uncertainty;
- engage with, get to know and make friends with fellow stakeholders with a variety of views, problems to solve and solutions to offer;
- break new ground in sharing, creating, learning about and promoting effective ways to engage people and communities to undertake positive action to mitigate and adapt to the ravages of climate change in the Mediterranean.
Our overall, broad goal is to encourage you to become an even better ocean-climate-literate stakeholder. An ocean-climate literate citizen:
- understands the inter-relatedness or nexus of the ocean and the climate and their importance to humanity and nature;
- can communicate about the ocean, the climate and their intersection in a meaningful way; and
- is able to make informed and responsible decisions regarding their impact on the ocean, its resources and the climate.
(Based on a statement by the Irish Ocean Literacy Network.)
More information[edit | edit source]
For more info, please see https://oceansclimate.wixsite.com/oceansclimate/