3 years, 4 countries, 10 partners, and hundreds of smiles: The BlueSchoolsMed project has come to an end, after its successful implementation.
Emerged as a collective initiative from the members of the EU4Ocean Coalition and funded by Erasmus+ program since 2020, this project has been travelling between France, Italy, Greece and Malta, carrying over 19 creative blue projects across the Mediterranean. These projects were co-created with pupils and teachers, with strong support from the project partners and local marine stakeholders. The schools involved in the project had the opportunity to participate in three transnational trainings, national multiplier events, and 1 mediterranean multiplier event. In these events, games, field trips, museum visits, laboratory activities, public presentations, debates and many conversations took place, allowing for a peer-to-peer exchange among teachers and pupils. Brief summaries of these meetings are available on the project website: www.blueschoolsmed.eu .
Yes, there were challenges, such as crossing the language barriers, or dealing with COVID19 restrictions and other security concerns, but the Mediterranean multiplier event, which took place in May 2023, compensated these challenges, brought over 135 participants to Marseille, and aimed to bridge these gaps through interactive educational activities.
The BlueSchoolsMed project produced a series of deliverables that translate the process through which the project went through, and provide guidelines for teachers and educators, as well as researchers and consultants on how to approach the Ocean Literacy topic in schools and within political circles.
The first deliverable, IO1: Our Mediterranean Blue Challenge Framework, outlined the roadmap towards developing, implementing and evaluating the blue challenges in schools. A teacher’s guide was developed to facilitate the process
The second deliverable, IO2: the Proposed Blue Schools Challenges, and detailed the steps toward the development of the projects, but also the project themselves! In fact, a booklet containing the key information on the 19 Mediterranean projects.
The third deliverable, IO3: Assessing added value and impacts, presents the two surveys developed for the evaluation, from teachers and pupils’ point of view, as well as the results and key messages that can be extracted from the answers on the one hand, and from the evaluation process on the other hand.
The fourth deliverable, IO4: Interactive web-based platform, consists of an online repository of all resources developed by teachers and pupils throughout the project.
The fifth deliverable, IO5: Roadmap for supporting the uptake of the blue challenge in the Mediterranean schools, presents an overview of recommendations collected from various points of view, building on the previous surveys, but also on a SWOT analysis survey distributed to both teachers and partners. A policy brief is also developed to categorize and summarize these findings.
While the project finished, it inspired and paved the way for other projects and initiatives on ocean literacy and Blue education in Europe, in particular the winner of the EU4Ocean’Call on Thematic challenge of the year – “BlueMinds4Teachers”, “The Next Blue Generation” – funded by EMFAF, and new projects on Blue education funded by Mission Ocean – ProBlue, Shore and BlueLIGHTS, as well as many other schools under Network of EU Blue Schools, which will continue the work the BlueSchoolsMed has started!