The workshop was organised in the framework of the Ocean Observers initiative born in 2017 with the 1st Ocean Observers workshop, and the Euro-Argo RISE H2020 European Union project, as part of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.
The Ocean Observers is an international educational network of marine scientists and communicators, teachers, and other stakeholders who are willing to share marine science educational resources and experiences for exploring the possibilities to establish new international collaborative activities. A long-term goal of the Ocean Observers initiative is to assemble all educational materials in a unique, free access repository, which will help to build a global ocean observation learning platform.
Marine science education and outreach are fundamental tools to raise awareness among the communities that a monitored, preserved, and healthy ocean is vital for the well-being of generations to come. The existing outreach activities, focused on in situ ocean observations, are isolated and lack national, European, and international visibility and coordination. Moreover, these activities involve various categories of people who lack opportunities to talk together. The Ocean Observers workshop wishes to promote discussions and collaboration between all actors involved in marine science outreach activities and help them to properly disseminate scientific knowledge about the ocean.
Objectives of the workshop
- Share experience and resources around ocean observing educational activities
- Generate and support discussions and collaboration between people engaged in marine science educational programmes
- Engage new schools, educators, scientists, NGOs, citizen, etc. in ocean observing educational activities
The workshop ws organised by the international Ocean Observers Working Group, jointly led by OceanOPS (World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) - Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) Joint Centre for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology in situ Observations Programmes Support) and Euro-Argo (European contribution to the Argo Programme).