The Trilogy of Ocean, Climate and Coast: The Urgency and Exigency of Literacy

Over the last decade, the use of simulation, games and role-play have been gaining ground in ocean and climate literacy.  This session will describe and outline results from a particularly powerful, but underused, form of experiential learning format, called participatory simulation (PS).  It contains (elements of) game, simulation, role-play, experience, human interaction, decision-making, negotiation, stakeholder engagement, etc.  It is often large scale, open ended, goal and results oriented, free form and data driven.  Debriefing is a crucial component.

It is difficult to separate climate and ocean.  Without the ocean, the Earth would be an unliveable hothouse.  Without climate the ocean would hardly exist.  Our overarching goal, therefore, was to help participants understand the oceans-climate nexus and to become better ocean-climate-literate stakeholders.  The Inter- Oceans-Climate School (IOCS), France, has run two sessions so far (the last was three and a half days spread over three weeks, and the results are encouraging).  In our previous sessions, we welcomed participants from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, India and Europe.  The IOCS is an official event of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO, as part of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

Our presentation will describe the event and analyse results obtained from detailed feedback by participants.  Co-authors include both organizers and participants.  We will endeavour to answer your questions and entice you to participate in an upcoming session.