Ocean literacy in Brazilian formal education: A tool for participative coastal management

Abstract Ocean literacy (OL) proposes to include ocean and marine environment-related content in school curricula. Such a topic has been deemed effective for citizens to develop actions and attitudes towards the health of marine ecosystems. This study aimed to verify the presence and frequency of OL principles and concepts in the Brazilian high school curriculum at the federal (National Curricular Parameters-PCN) and regional (Rio de Janeiro - Curricular Reference-RC) levels. Both PCN and RC contained OL-related content. Moreover, Biology and Geography were the subjects with the highest numbers of OL concepts, both in the PCN (26 and 27, respectively) and in the RC-RJ documents (28 and 24, respectively), while OL concepts were very little represented in History subject. A Mann–Whitney U-test did not indicate statistically significant differences in the number of concepts between PCN and RC-RJ (p = 0.54). A principal component analysis discriminated the documents according to subjects, regardless of their origin (federal or regional). These results provide an unbiased assessment of the relationship between the curriculum and OL in a strongly affected area (Rio de Janeiro State coastal zone [CZ]). Therefore, these results provide valuable support for managers seeking to promote effective CZ management practices and public compliance.


Introduction
A coastal zone (CZ), a region of interaction between the terrestrial and marine environment, encompasses some of the most valuable ecosystems on Earth, both in terms of biodiversity, productivity and ecosystem services for human development and well-being (UNEP, 2006).The Brazilian CZ is one of the largest worldwide and has an extension of 7500 km, of which 636 km are part of Rio de Janeiro State.Although it covers only 8.5% of the Brazilian CZ, it is a region with great ecological relevance and a variety of ecosystems (sandbanks, sandy beaches, mangroves and rocky shores), home to several species.In addition to being a densely inhabited area with 80% of the state's population (IBGE, 2011), it is also a hub of economic activity, including tourism, industry, ports, and oil and gas exploration (MMA, 2008).Despite its ecological and economic relevance, Rio de Janeiro CZ has been accumulating signs of environmental decay due to problems such as urban settlement sprawling with no infrastructure, lack of sanitation, improper garbage disposal, floods, in addition to oil spill accidents (Aguiar, 2017;Pinheiro & Silva, 2021).
As a way of combating the impacts on the CZ in Rio de Janeiro, studies have pointed out the relevance of a governance system that considers the interdependence between human and environmental factors in problem management (Crowder et al., 2006;Young et al., 2007).Governance is the process by which different elements of society exert power and authority, influencing and enacting policies and decisions regarding public life, as well as economic and social development (Ehler, 2003).Governance is distinct from government and involves other mechanisms, institutions, the private sector and civil society.The goal is to solve common problems and achieve strategic objectives through collaborative decision-making (Jones, 2012;Juda, 1999).Governance processes can take many forms, depending on their goals and motivations, among which are top-down and bottom-up models.The first model assumes a topdown approach, where the information flow is directed downwards, and there is a separation between the elaboration and implementation of public policies.This model is characterised by centralised actions by the state.In contrast, the bottom-up model assumes that different stakeholders play an active and decisive role in defining common agendas and implementing policies of mutual interest.
Regarding coastal and marine environments, conservation and management measures have transitioned from top-down governance models, directed by governments, towards more participatory models, thus following a bottom-up orientation with community involvement in decision-making (McKinley & Fletcher, 2010).In Brazil, the Plano Nacional de Gerenciamento Costeiro-PNGC (National Coastal Management Plan), established in 1988, provides the framework for coastal management policies, plans and programmes of federative units and municipalities, in addition to regulating the environmental licensing of activities that can impact coastal ecosystems.The PNGC establishes the legal basis for an integrated, decentralised and participatory management of coastal ecosystems and their resources (Wever, Glaser, Gorris & Ferrol-Schulte, 2012).However, the participation of society in the decision-making, planning and management of the CZs is still limited.One of the reasons is the difficulty of ordinary people to understand technical terms in reports and meetings wherein management plans are discussed (Marroni & Asmus, 2013).Thus, initiatives to empower citizens to take an active and conscious role in addressing environmental problems in CZs are essential (Wever et al., 2012).
Ocean literacy (OL) refers to 'the understanding of the ocean's influence on humans and their influence on the ocean'.It emerged in the United States in the early 2000s, from a movement organised by scientists, educators, curriculum developers and other stakeholders interested in including ocean-related topics in school curricula (Ocean Literacy Network, 2020).A collaborative effort of the initial founders of OL defined what knowledge about the ocean all North American students should know after finishing school.It was summarised into seven essential principles and 45 fundamental concepts (Table 1), which were published in the document 'Ocean Literacy -The Essential Principles of Ocean Science K-12' (Schoedinger, Tran, & Whitley, 2010).Furthermore, it was established what is expected of an ocean literate person: (1) to understand fundamental concepts about the functioning of the ocean, (2) to speak in a meaningful way about marine environment-related subjects and (3) to make informed and responsible decisions for the ocean and its resources (Ocean Literacy Network, 2020).
In its almost 20 years of existence, OL has been identified as an important alternative to make individuals and society take actions and attitudes towards the health of seas and the ocean (Guest, Lotze, & Wallace, 2015).However, studies have indicated that the populations of several countries still have limited knowledge about the ocean.Steel et al. (2005), for example, observed that the adult population of the United States has little information on oceanic and coastal issues.In Europe, Gelcich et al. (2014) reported that general populations in 10 European countries felt only moderately informed about impacts on marine environments.Guest et al. (2015) investigated the knowledge of elementary school students in Canada, and Chen and Tsai (2016) studied higher education students in Taiwan.These authors concluded that students value marine environments but have low to moderate knowledge of marine environments.In Brazil, the situation is no different, in a national survey carried out in 2011 (CEMBRA, 2019) it was pointed out that, for Brazilians, the importance of the sea is limited to a source of food (67%) and leisure (39%).A: The interaction of oceanic and atmospheric processes controls weather and climate by dominating the Earth's energy, water and carbon systems.

E:
The ocean provides a vast living space with diverse and unique ecosystems from the surface through the water column and down to, and below, the seafloor.N1-refers to the number of concepts covered in the 45 OL basic concepts for each document and subject; N2-refers to the total number of occurrences of the 45 OL basic concepts for each document and subject.*Thecomplete description of OL concepts can be found at: https://oceanliteracy.unesco.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/OceanLiteracyGuide_V3_2020-8x11-1.pdf.
Regarding secondary education, the literature is restricted to three papers.Low et al. ( 2013) investigated misconceptions about marine sciences presented by Taiwanese students and identified that they had moderate knowledge, with an average rate of correct answers about marine concepts of 50%.Cheimonopoulou et al. (2022) assessed the knowledge about marine issues of students from the Mediterranean region of Italy and Greece and identified a rate of 40% correct answers for questions related to marine concepts.Unlike the first two studies, Chang, Tsai, and Meliana (2023) assessed the OL level of students at an Indonesian maritime vocational school that presents a curriculum focused on the marine environment and obtained 70% correct answers on marine issues and concluded that, in this case, students have a basic level OL.
To mitigate students' insufficient understanding of the ocean and promote OL, some initiatives have been proposed.The Blue School Program in Portugal proposes that participating schools develop a marine-focused curriculum to enhance students' oceanic literacy (Costa et al., 2021).In South Africa, the Two Oceans Aquarium created initiatives to promote OL that encompass creating a marine science curriculum, aiding schools and teachers in implementing this curriculum and providing marine-based holiday programmes for high school students (Stevens, 2021).In other cases, activities may be more specific, such as developing ocean-themed games (Koenigstein, Hentschel, Heel & Drinkorn, 2020), constructing physical models to aid understanding of oceanic concepts (Curran, Bower, & Furey, 2017) and creating iBooks that complement formal teaching curricula with OL content (McHugh, McCauley, Davison, Raine & Grehan, 2020).In 2021, the city of Santos in Brazil enacted a law that requires the inclusion of OL in the curriculum of schools located in the municipality (Santos Municipal Law No. 3935, 2021).
OL has been recognised in studies (Dupont & Fauville, 2017;Ryabinin et al., 2019;Visbeck, 2018) and intergovernmental reports (United Nations, 2018) as a bottom-up initiative that mobilises and engages society on ocean-related issues.Since public knowledge is essential for bottom-up coastal management and formal education has a wide reach, including OL in school curricula is a strategic tool for equipping the population with the necessary technical skills to make informed decisions.Therefore, managers interested in economic environmental management and societal mobilisation should consider implementing OL initiatives (Visbeck, 2018).As observed by Lucrezi et al. (2019), educational activities related to OL principles and concepts in school curricula have successfully engaged Mozambique's population in marine environmental conservation and management processes.
Encouraging the implementation of OL in school curricula can promote social engagement in the rational and sustainable management of the CZ in Rio de Janeiro State, both in the present and future.This study aims to investigate the presence of content related to the seven essential principles and 45 fundamental concepts of OL in the formal education curriculum in Brazil, with a focus on Rio de Janeiro.Therefore, the findings of this study will provide useful information for engaging society in bottom-up management practices for CZ.

Analysed documents
The following documents were analysed and compared: (1) 'Ocean Literacy -The Essential Principles and Fundamental Concepts of Ocean Sciences for Learners of All Ages' (OL-PC); (2) Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais (PCN; National Curriculum Parameters in English); and (3) Referencial Curricular do Rio de Janeiro (RC-RJ; Curricular Reference of the State of Rio de Janeiro in English).
The OL-PC, which is in its third version, provides an overview of OL, including its definition, goals and history, as well as its seven essential principles and 45 fundamental concepts (Ocean Literacy Network, 2020).This guide describes the ocean knowledge that everyone should have, which is systematised in these seven principles and 45 concepts (Ocean Literacy Network, 2020).
The PCN is a federal document that outlines school curriculum contents for Brazilian schools.It was published in 2000 to guide regional curricula for each subject and ensure a minimum common content for all Brazilian students.Moreover, each Brazilian federative unit develops its curricular framework, which includes a minimum common content as well as regional and local characteristics that reflect the unique aspects of its society, culture and economy (Brasil, 2000).As a result, the PCN and various RCs may exhibit some specificities.The RC-RJ was published in 2012.
In this study, we analysed PCN and RC-RJ for high school, which is the final stage of Brazilian basic education, lasting three years and covering young people from 15 to 17 years of age.The curricular contents investigated were restricted to Biology, Geography and History, since previous research (Pazoto et al., 2021) had already shown that these subjects contain 88.7% of the words related to the ocean and marine environment in both PCN and RC-RJ.

Data analysis
We analysed the inclusion of OL principles and concepts in school curricula using the content analysis method by Bardin (2011), which involves identifying, extracting and organising relevant information from written sources.To accomplish this, we used OL principles and concepts as search categories to guide our analysis of the documents.First, we read the entire set of documents to gain a general understanding of their content.Next, we identified sections of each document that pertained to one or more OL principles or concepts and coded them accordingly.As an example, excerpts that dealt with 'source of pollution', 'polluted areas', 'hydrographic networks', etc. were identified as related to concept G from principle 1, which states that 'The ocean is connected to major lakes, watersheds and waterways because all major watersheds on Earth drain to the ocean; therefore, rivers and streams transport nutrients, salts, sediments and pollutants from watersheds to coastal estuaries and the ocean'.Similarly, as an example, excerpts related to concept A from principle 2 were identified.This principle states that 'Many earth materials and biogeochemical cycles originate in the ocean.Many of the sedimentary rocks now exposed on land were formed in the ocean.Ocean life laid down the vast volume of siliceous and carbonate rocks'.The identified excerpts included terms such as 'chemical elements', as well as specific words like 'oxygen', 'carbon' and 'nitrogen'.Through this process, the presence of OL principles and concepts was identified in the corpus of documents.Finally, the presence (if identified) and frequency (number of times) of each OL principle and concept were found within the subject areas of Biology, Geography and History in both the PCN and RC-RJ documents.Only excerpts that explicitly related to OL principles and concepts were coded, and those passages that only tangentially touched on the subject were excluded to avoid ambiguity in the results.
A principal component analysis (PCA) was conducted on the frequency of OL principles and concepts (totalling 45 variables) for each of the three subjects in the two documents.This technique linearly converts a set of correlated variables into another set of uncorrelated variables that can explain the information from the original set.The new variables, known as principal components (PCs), are graphically represented by the x and y axes (PC1 and PC2, respectively).The former provides the highest explanation of the original data variation, and the latter has the second-highest, and so on until the total variance in original data is accounted for.These axes (PCs) comprise a synthetic way of reducing several redundant variables into super-variables (PCs), which are easily visualised but not necessarily easily interpreted.This exploratory multivariate analysis is used to identify patterns and trends, allowing to analyse of multiple variables simultaneously, generating knowledge on the importance of the studied variables (Abdi & Williams, 2010;Hair et al., 2009).
Non-parametric Mann-Whitney U-test (between two datasets) and Kruskal-Wallis (between more than two datasets) tests were used to determine the statistical significance of variances in the frequency of OL principles and concepts among the investigated subjects in each document.The significance level to reject the null hypothesis was 0.05.To avoid errors from multiple comparisons, the probabilities associated with non-parametric tests were corrected using the Bonferroni correction.Non-parametric tests were chosen due to the non-normal distribution of variance and heteroscedasticity, which were evaluated using the Shapiro-Wilk and Levene's tests, respectively.All analyses were performed using PAST software version 2.08 (Hammer, Harper, & Ryan, 2001).

Results
The Biology subject had all seven OL principles in both the PCN and RC-RJ.Geography, in turn, had six principles in both documents, while History had three principles in the PCN and one in the RC-RJ.Biology and Geography had the highest number of OL concepts, with 26 and 27 concepts in the PCN document and 28 and 24 concepts in the RC-RJ document, respectively.History had three concepts in the PCN and one in the RC-RJ document (Table 1).
The Kruskal-Wallis test showed significant differences between subjects in both documents (p = 2.39 × 10 −9 ).The Mann-Whitney U-test indicated that History differed significantly from Biology and Geography in both documents, remaining significant after the Bonferroni correction (Table 2).However, the Mann-Whitney U-test did not find significant differences between the number of concepts present in the PCN and RC-RJ documents (p = 0.54).
The PCA revealed that PC1 recovered 64.26% of the total variation and distinguished two groups in both PCN and RC-RJ: one formed by Biology and the other with Geography and History.PC2 recovered 26.83% of the variation and discriminated Geography and History between the PCN and RC-RJ (Figure 1).Concepts 6E (covers the various impacts caused by humans on the ocean; 0.40), 5B (addresses the microscopic life diversity harboured in the ocean; 0.39) and 5C (addresses the macroscopic life diversity harboured in the ocean; 0.31) had the highest correlation index with PC1.Conversely, concepts 6D (describes the different ways humans may affect the ocean and marine environments; 0.57), 6B (discusses the variety of advantages humans get from coastal-marine environments; 0.38) and 1G (explores the link between the ocean and bodies of freshwater on land; 0.30) had the highest correlation index with PC2.

Discussion
The significance of incorporating OL principles and concepts into the school curriculum to enhance societal understanding and consciousness of marine environmental issues has been widely acknowledged (Guest et   The p-values obtained before the Bonferroni correction are above the diagonal, while those obtained after the correction are below it.*Significant results. Fauville & Tuddenham, 2017; United Nations, 2018).Thus, the analysis of school curricula is the first initiative so that the potential and challenges of including these contents are achieved (Pazoto et al., 2021).Despite the acknowledged importance of OL, there has been a paucity of research examining its presence in formal education curricula.Two prior studies conducted in Brazil analysed national and regional curriculum documents at the elementary school level, with one study identifying only a small fraction of content related to ocean and marine themes (Pazoto et al., 2021), and the other concluding that only five of the seven OL principles and 14 concepts were represented in the analysed documents (Pazoto et al., 2022).In contrast, our study found that the Brazilian secondary education curriculum incorporates the vast majority of OL principles and concepts.
Besides the aforementioned studies, only three studies worldwide have focused on investigating the presence of OL-related content in formal education curricula.Hoffman and Barstow (2007) investigated Earth Science Education Standards from the 50 US states and found that only 20 out of 45 OL concepts were included.McPherson, Wright, and Tyedmers (2018a) analysed the curricula of high school science subjects in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada, and encountered that of the 11 curricula analysed, only three addressed OL, encompassing between two and 18 concepts.In turn, Chang, Hirenkumar, and Wu (2021) found that the National Educational Standards of India encompassed an average of 11.3 OL concepts.Otherwise, the Brazilian school curriculum approached a larger number of OL principles and concepts both at the federal and regional levels (Rio de Janeiro State).However, unlike Chang et al. (2021) who identified Geography as the subject including most of the OL concepts, in Brazil, both Geography and Biology contained more than 50% of the OL concepts, which were less represented in History.
To redress the lack of ocean-related content in school curricula in some countries (Chang et al., 2021;Hoffman & Barstow, 2007;McPherson, Wright, & Tyedmers, 2018a), activities have been suggested that complement the curriculum or promote OL beyond the curriculum.McHugh et al. (2020) proposed building an iBook with OL content for high school science classes and concluded that it contributed to increasing students' OL.Koenigstein et al. (2020) developed a game about ocean issues for high school students and found that it was positive in promoting OL topics related to marine sustainability.Fauville et al. (2019) is an edited collection that provides numerous case studies and examples of effective pedagogical approaches.Fauville (2017) provides a good example of how students can benefit from interacting with a marine scientist, albeit virtually and Tran et al. (2010) demonstrate how research findings can inform practice.
In the present study, PCA was used to investigate potential patterns and trends in both documents regarding OL principles and concepts.Our findings indicated that documents were separated not by their origin (federal or regional) but by school subjects.Differences between subjects were statistically significant and already expected, as each addresses specific knowledge and, therefore, has different goals and skills (Brasil, 2000).Thus, OL concepts with greater correlation with PC1 that separate Biology from Geography and History have contents traditionally addressed in Biology and are only found there.For example, concepts 5B and 5C address microscopic and macroscopic diversity of environmental marine life, respectively, in addition to 6E, which discusses the impacts of humans on the ocean.The latter concept, although addressed in the three subjects, was more often recorded in Biology.Likewise, the concepts that mostly contribute to distinguishing Geography from History by PC2 (1G: explores the link between the ocean and bodies of freshwater on land; 6B: marine environments benefits; and 6D: impacts of human beings on marine environments) are most included in Geography contents.
In each grade of high school, Brazilian students receive instruction in all subjects.Therefore, Biology and Geography complement each other in terms of OL principles and concepts.Together, these subjects incorporate 40 out of 45 OL concepts at the federal level (PCN) and 38 at the regional level (RC-RJ), a difference that is neither relevant nor statistically significant.Furthermore, the PCN and RC-RJ should not be seen as exclusive but rather complementary in defining classroom content.Together, they encompass all seven principles and 43 out of 45 OL concepts, except for 6F (CZs risks to natural phenomena such as tsunamis, hurricanes, cyclones, sea-level rise, waves and storms) and 7F (ocean exploration and study interdisciplinarity).In short, OL can be incorporated into the Brazilian curriculum, especially in Biology and Geography subjects.This is in line with a study by Gough (2017), which identified these subjects as the best for introducing OL knowledge into Australian school curricula.However, the OL theme has an interdisciplinary nature and can be included in almost all school subjects (Santoro et al., 2017).Therefore, future work should analyse the potential for OL inclusion in other school subjects.
Although the Brazilian curricula, as represented by the subjects analysed, encompass almost all OL content, inclusion in the curricula alone does not guarantee its effective implementation in the classroom.Other factors must also be considered, such as how the content is addressed by teachers, which in turn depends on their previous training (Payne et al., 2010).McPherson, Wright, and Tyedmers (2018b) and Mogias et al. (2015) found that teacher training courses in Greece and Canada, respectively, do not adequately prepare teachers for marine environments, with many of them feeling unprepared to teach the subject in class.Thus, more than simply being included in the curricula, teachers must be well trained in OL content to effectively incorporate it into their teaching.
Including OL in schools can help overcome one of the necessary but insufficient points for social participation in bottom-up governance strategies: the lack of knowledge (Marroni & Asmus, 2013;Wever et al., 2012).OL addresses several CZ-threatening problems in Rio de Janeiro State, such as the unplanned urban sprawl consequences (Aguiar, 2017), which are addressed in concepts 6F (CZ population density), 6D (ways humans affect the sea) and 1G (water body connectivity and transport of pollutants, debris, and others to the sea).Another issue in the CZ of Rio de Janeiro is the intensification of extreme events and sea-level rise due to climate change (Aguiar & Ervatti, 2020;Egler & Gusmão, 2014), which is addressed in principle 3 and its concepts.On the other hand, Rio de Janeiro benefits from several resources extracted from marine environments, such as oil and natural gas (Souto, Polette, & Kampel, 2009), which is highlighted in concept 1H.This concept emphasises the finite nature of marine resources, while concepts 6B and 6C address various services and resources provided by marine environments.Additionally, some OL concepts are related to management itself, addressing the shortage of marine resources (1H), individual and collective responsibility in resource management (6G), and the need for sustainable use of these environments (7C).
The Brazilian curriculum at both federal and regional levels in Rio de Janeiro contains knowledge about marine environments.However, it has not been effectively integrated into schools.Furthermore, even when knowledge is present, it is not enough, as Enlightenment-era theses from the 16th to 18th centuries have argued.Mobilisation and engagement from society are necessary to address the challenges of participatory management.Therefore, it is through concrete societal objectives that school curriculum and teacher training can fulfil their role in spreading content related to the ocean and marine environments.Education systems often only reproduce dominant economic models, perpetuating a vicious cycle.To break this cycle and become agents of transformation, there is a social urgency for change.

Conclusion
Both federal (PCN) and regional (RC-RJ) documents cover almost all OL-related content in Biology and Geography subjects, indicating good coverage of marine environments in Brazilian high school curricula.PCA proved to be effective for multiple variables simultaneously, differentiated documents by subject, regardless of being of federal or regional origin.However, coverage alone does not guarantee knowledge will reach classrooms and empower citizens to make informed decisions.Teachers trained in OL themes must be associated with a society aware of their relationship with marine environments and their consequences.It would seem that there is a very long way to go, still, to promote engaged and responsible participatory coastal management.
ocean moderates global weather and climate.C: Heat exchange between the ocean and atmosphere can result in dramatic global and regional weather phenomena, impacting patterns of rain and drought.D: Most rain that falls on land originally evaporated from the tropical

3F:
Ocean ecosystems are defined by environmental factors and the community of organisms living there.provide important and productive nursery areas for many marine and aquatic species.7 (Continued)Australian Journal of Environmental Education

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Principal component analysis (PCA) scatter plot for Biology (BIO), Geography (GEO) and History (HIST) subjects in the PCN (National Curriculum Parameters) and RC (Curricular Reference of the State of Rio de Janeiro) documents.

Table 1 .
(Ocean Literacy Network, 2020)mental concepts of Ocean Literacy(Ocean Literacy Network, 2020)and their presence and frequency in the documents Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais (PCN; National Curricular Parameters in English) and Referencial Curricular do Rio de Janeiro (RC; Rio de Janeiro Curricular Reference in English) for the subjects Biology (PCN-B and RC-B), Geography (PCN-G and RC-G) and History(PCN-H and RC-H)

Table 1 .
(Continued ) A: Ocean life ranges in size from the smallest living things, microbes, to the largest animal on Earth, blue whales.4 B: Most of the organisms and biomass in the ocean are microbes.Microbes are the most important primary producers in the ocean.10 C: Most of the major groups that exist on Earth are found exclusively in the ocean and the diversity of major groups of organisms is much greater in the ocean than on land.8 D: Ocean biology provides many unique examples of life cycles, adaptations, and important relationships among organisms that do not occur on land.

Table 1 .
(Continued ) F: Much of the world's population lives in coastal areas.G: Everyone is responsible for caring for the ocean.

Table 2 .
p-values from two-by-two comparison of Ocean Literacy concepts' occurrence frequency among Biology (Bio), Geography (Geo) and History (Hist) subjects in Brazilian curricular documents (PCN and RC-RJ) using the Mann-Whitney U-test