10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
[G03-P06] A practice and evaluation of ocean education in the frame of STEAM –case study of creating a work of marine debris art-
Keywords:ocean education, STEAM education, marine debris, art, fisheries high school
‘STEAM’, which adds an ‘A’ (Art/Arts) to ‘STEM’ (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education, is broadly defined to include art, culture, life, economics, law, politics, ethics, etc. The introduction of STEAM concept is a trend in the field of education.
As stated in the Third Basic Plan on Ocean Policy, the development of human resources and the promotion of citizens' understanding of the ocean are recognized as issues that need to be addressed, and various ocean education programs have been implemented in different regions. However, most of the programs depend on a few enthusiastic teachers and there are concerns about their sustainability. In addition, they rarely include art and artistic elements. Therefore, it would be highly significant to conduct an ocean education pilot program that incorporates these elements with the goal of envisioning a sustainable ocean education system.
In order to create a curriculum of "ocean education in the framework of STEAM" that incorporates the essence of STEAM into ocean education, we conducted a program to create a work of marine debris art in fisheries high schools and evaluated the effectiveness and significance of the program.
In January 2023, MRI & steAm conducted the program for 33 high school sophomores at Okinawa Fisheries High School. The program included a background briefing, collecting marine debris on the beach, cleaning marine debris, creating artwork, exhibiting, presenting and critiquing the artwork, and sorting and cleaning the collected marine debris as group activities. MRI & steAm conducted a similar program at Kamo Fisheries High School in December 2022, but its details are not discussed in this paper.
Before and after the program implementation, we conducted a questionnaire survey to understand the characteristics of the participants and to evaluate the effectiveness and significance of the program analyzing the internal changes of the students, especially the changes in self-esteem, as an indicator. Hence, in this study, we also attempted to evaluate the effectiveness of the program implementation using the self-esteem scale.
Self-esteem is one of the elements included in the “well-being index” (Mitsubishi Research Institute, 2022). In addition to the subjective well-being enjoyed by "human beings," this well-being requires two external factors that cannot be ignored in human life: the earth and society. Therefore, in addition to self-esteem, the questionnaire asked the importance and satisfaction of values related to human beings themselves and the importance and realization of values related to society and the earth.
In the post-program questionnaire, 90% of the students answered that they had gained a sense of accomplishment from the program, and 20% of the students indicated that they had gained some type of confidence. This suggests that the program contributed to an increase in self-esteem in the short term. In addition, 40% of the students indicated that their interest in marine debris had increased and 30% of the students indicated that they were more motivated to take a more active role in addressing marine debris problems. It was suggested that the marine debris art-making program could increase participants' self-esteem, increase their interest in the marine debris problems, and help them see it as the problem they should be involved.
This study was conducted as a part of “Ocean Expo” project commissioned by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. EXPO 2025 OSAKA, KANSAI, JAPAN will be held under the theme "Designing Future Society for Our Lives" and the Expo is known as the "Ocean Expo" in part because it will be held in a venue surrounded by the sea on all sides. With the aim of creating value through the sea/ocean and presenting a theme and model for solving global issues to the world at the Ocean Expo, this study was conducted focusing on ocean education as a candidate theme.
As stated in the Third Basic Plan on Ocean Policy, the development of human resources and the promotion of citizens' understanding of the ocean are recognized as issues that need to be addressed, and various ocean education programs have been implemented in different regions. However, most of the programs depend on a few enthusiastic teachers and there are concerns about their sustainability. In addition, they rarely include art and artistic elements. Therefore, it would be highly significant to conduct an ocean education pilot program that incorporates these elements with the goal of envisioning a sustainable ocean education system.
In order to create a curriculum of "ocean education in the framework of STEAM" that incorporates the essence of STEAM into ocean education, we conducted a program to create a work of marine debris art in fisheries high schools and evaluated the effectiveness and significance of the program.
In January 2023, MRI & steAm conducted the program for 33 high school sophomores at Okinawa Fisheries High School. The program included a background briefing, collecting marine debris on the beach, cleaning marine debris, creating artwork, exhibiting, presenting and critiquing the artwork, and sorting and cleaning the collected marine debris as group activities. MRI & steAm conducted a similar program at Kamo Fisheries High School in December 2022, but its details are not discussed in this paper.
Before and after the program implementation, we conducted a questionnaire survey to understand the characteristics of the participants and to evaluate the effectiveness and significance of the program analyzing the internal changes of the students, especially the changes in self-esteem, as an indicator. Hence, in this study, we also attempted to evaluate the effectiveness of the program implementation using the self-esteem scale.
Self-esteem is one of the elements included in the “well-being index” (Mitsubishi Research Institute, 2022). In addition to the subjective well-being enjoyed by "human beings," this well-being requires two external factors that cannot be ignored in human life: the earth and society. Therefore, in addition to self-esteem, the questionnaire asked the importance and satisfaction of values related to human beings themselves and the importance and realization of values related to society and the earth.
In the post-program questionnaire, 90% of the students answered that they had gained a sense of accomplishment from the program, and 20% of the students indicated that they had gained some type of confidence. This suggests that the program contributed to an increase in self-esteem in the short term. In addition, 40% of the students indicated that their interest in marine debris had increased and 30% of the students indicated that they were more motivated to take a more active role in addressing marine debris problems. It was suggested that the marine debris art-making program could increase participants' self-esteem, increase their interest in the marine debris problems, and help them see it as the problem they should be involved.
This study was conducted as a part of “Ocean Expo” project commissioned by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. EXPO 2025 OSAKA, KANSAI, JAPAN will be held under the theme "Designing Future Society for Our Lives" and the Expo is known as the "Ocean Expo" in part because it will be held in a venue surrounded by the sea on all sides. With the aim of creating value through the sea/ocean and presenting a theme and model for solving global issues to the world at the Ocean Expo, this study was conducted focusing on ocean education as a candidate theme.