IOI Canada Online Training Programme:
Ocean Governance after COP28: Problems, Progress and Prospects; 18 March – 23 May
IOI Canada successfully delivered the online course on Ocean Governance after COP28: Problems, Progress & Prospects with a series of 20 live sessions between 18th March and 23rd May. Almost 140 individuals registered for this interdisciplinary training from over 50 countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Central America, Europe, North and South America, and the South Pacific. More than 20 speakers joined remotely from Germany, India, Switzerland and different parts of Canada, giving presentations and engaging in wide-ranging discussions on topics relating to the four modules: Law of the Sea and Ocean Governance; Fisheries, Aquaculture and Food Security; State of the Ocean; and Human Security and the Ocean. The schedule and other details are available in the Training section of IOI Canada’s website.
Synchronous and asynchronous study options were once again available, with both involving a time commitment of 30 hours of lectures, as well as required preparatory materials for each session and an assignment for each of the four modules. The live class for synchronous participation was capped to ensure a suitable size for discussion, with the remaining 110 participants doing the course in their own time via the self-paced study stream – an option which continues to be popular with busy professionals and those in very different time zones or with unreliable internet access.
Professional Development Day For Teachers: The Ocean And Us In An Era Of Climate Change
Dalhousie, Canada, 23rd March
Given the urgent need to inform and equip school teachers as they educate the next generation on climate change and the ocean, IOI Canada held an innovative professional development day on 23rd March. Designed and organised in collaboration with the Nova Scotia Department of Education and Early Childhood Development and a local non-profit, the Bay of Fundy Ecosystem Partnership (BoFEP), this event was attended by 35 teachers and featured seven specialist speakers, both academics and practitioners.
Key to the approach was the emphasis on how participants could actually use the information they were provided with. Each presentation was followed by a Q&A session, and related classroom exercises were demonstrated and discussed during both the morning and afternoon. Additionally, participants all received a specially developed 114-page teacher guide on “The Ocean and Us in an Era of Climate Change.”
Primarily prepared and reviewed by experienced local teachers, with input from IOI and BoFEP, this guide used terminology and teaching protocols familiar within the Nova Scotia educational system. It was also aligned with the provincial science curriculum, while highlighting the connections to multiple courses across the final five years of schooling such as Science, Citizenship, Geography, Career Development, Oceans, Biology and Geology. In addition, resources included a list of potential field trips, relevant websites and videos for classroom use, other educational toolkits for teachers, facts on climate change, and recommendations of both scientific papers and general books on the ocean. The participants therefore left with the knowledge and tools to create an important ripple effect among local youth in terms of increased understanding of issues, threats and possible solutions around climate change and the ocean.