Following the launch of the European Blue Education Framework organized earlier this year, we are continuing the discussion on blue education, with special focus on educational resources. This third workshop in the BlueLightS Blue Education Framework Workshop Series explored how to design, develop, and scale high-quality educational resources that support Blue Education across formal schooling.
The session was held on 27 April 2026. focused on how open, accessible, and curriculum-linked materials can enable teachers to integrate river and ocean sustainability into everyday teaching practice — across subjects and levels — while ensuring equity, usability, and long-term impact.
The event was opened by Evy Copejans (EMSEA) and moderated by Louise Bigot (OFB) who also gave an overview of the educational resources, as presented in the Blue education framework. Louise underlined that effective use of resources depends largely on how they are taught: pupils must be engaged in active learning in order to bring about transformative changes in the way they perceive the ocean / aquatic ecosystems and act towards it.
Elfithri Rahmah (UNESCO) presented UNESCO‘s global efforts to support quality education and sustainable water management, aligning its work with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, more specifically SDG4 and SDG6. A key pillar of UNESCO’s strategy is its focus on water education, one of five priority areas contributing to capacity development under the UN’s SDG6 Global Acceleration Framework. Through this approach, UNESCO aims to strengthen knowledge systems and build skills needed for sustainable water management. Apart from offering physical and online resources to raise awareness on climate change and sustainability, such are GWEN – Global Water Education Network and Greening curriculum guidance
Elfithiri shared how UNESCO also spreads the voice of water as part of its Virtual Science museum, which serves as a bridge between science, heritage and community knowledge. She also highlighted the water education materials designed for different ages (3-7, 7-12 and 12-16) available at UNESCO’s Digital Library
We also had a video presentation from Tim Deprez, a science teacher from Belgium. Tim elaborated on the school system in Belgium, more specifically in Flanders, and explained the structure of the course on oceanography he developed, consisted of lectures, WIKI project, Practicum and extras. More about his work can be found in the Blue Schools magazine.
Cushla Dromgool-Regan shared insights from Ireland and briefly presented Explorers Education Programme that promotes ocean awareness, knowledge and engagement, as well as supports ocean literacy and marine education in primary schools. Cushla also announced the upcoming educational resources and shared BlueLightS and Explorers Innovative Education resources – Climate Change Superheroes, free to download here: https://www.marine.ie/site-area/areas-activity/education-outreach/explorers/explorers-climate-change-superheroes
This event was part of the Blue Education Framework event series.
You can watch the recording of the workshop here:
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