Ocean Literacy: Understanding the Ocean

Professor K.C. Koutsopoulos has taught at the University of Colorado, the University of Iowa and the National Technical University of Athens where he served as director of the Geography and Spatial Analysis Lab., as Chairman of the Geography and regional planning Department and as Dean of the Rural and Surveying Engineering School. He is a member of several scientific and academic associations as well as journal boards. In addition, he is VP of EUROGEO and Chief Editor of the European Journal of Geography and the book series titled “key challenges in geography” published by Springer. He has organized numerous congresses, meetings and seminars and he has participated in many more.   He has presented more than 170 papers in various meetings, has published more than 80 papers in refereed journals and has edited or written 70 books and chapters.  Jan Stel is Prof. em. Ocean Space and Human Activity at the University Maastricht, the Netherlands.Jan studied geology and palaeontology. His thesis concerned a paleo-biological study of Silurian favositid corals of the Swedish island Gotland. As an ocean science manager, he organized ocean going expeditions, developed a European consortium of small European countries to participate in the Ocean Drilling Program, initiated capacity building programs for IOC UNESCO, developed the Dutch Antarctic research program, and organized projects at the interface with the ocean industry. From 2000, he was a professor in ‘Ocean Space and Human Activities’ at the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands. Jan wrote some 350 (popular) science papers and blogs to inform the public at large why ocean space is important for us.

• Part I: General on ocean literacy.- Ocean literacy: background, future drivers and opportunities.- Ocean literacy – From a ripple to wave.- A framework for the assessment of the effectiveness of ocean literacy initiatives.- Exploring and exploiting deep ocean, space.- Ocean literacy – In the context of naming of seas. Case study: The sea between Korea and Japan.- Part II: Education.- Design-based implementation research for exploring the ocean. A geographical perspective.- Innovative education strategies to advance ocean literacy.- Education under sail: Could sail training be the quintessential alternative education space for ocean Literacy?- Part III: Applications.- The importance of Ocean literacy in the Mediterranean Region - Steps towards blue sustainability.