Ocean literacy – the understanding of the ocean’s influence on us and our influence on the ocean – is essential, for all citizens, to restore planetary health and build the future we need. Yet across Australia, ocean literacy, and environmental education more broadly, remains largely absent from the curriculum. The new NSW science curriculum, to be implemented from 2026, has improved marginally with a component in the unit ‘Living Systems’ attributed to ‘Ecosystems’ in Stage 4 (Years 7 & 8) and a unit called ‘Environmental Sustainability’ for Stage 5 (Years 9 & 10). There are sprinklings of water awareness and environmental content in Geography for Years 7 – 10 but a student could quite easily come out of their educational journey not knowing how the ocean provides half our oxygen and regulates our climate. This is important, fundamental knowledge, particularly given the multiple environmental crises we currently face.
Through OceanEarth Foundation’s Ocean Youth program, we’re committed to seeing ocean literacy incorporated in the school curriculum. We cannot innovate our way out of environmental crises if we don’t understand the systems we are trying to save. Without awareness of how ocean health connects to climate change, abundance and importance of biodiversity, and human wellbeing, young people lack the knowledge needed to develop or support effective solutions.
Embedding ocean literacy in the curriculum across a range of learning areas, explicitly and specifically, is critical to creating a society that is not only environmentally literate but empowered to make sustainable decisions that lead to restorative and meaningful change. Ocean literacy must begin in schools.
Thanks to the generous support of the James Kirby Foundation, Ocean Youth will launch a national initiative in July 2025 – in the middle of the UN Ocean Decade – to begin closing the ocean literacy gap in Australian schools. The project will start the conversation and develop the strategy to equip students and educators with the knowledge, tools, and confidence to become informed ocean stewards. This is just the beginning of a much-needed shift to ensure the next generation can lead with knowledge, understanding, to create the future we all need, starting with a healthy ocean.