Last Tuesday December 12, a group of Coihueco primary and secondary school science teachers participated in a training program in marine sciences at the Marine Biology Station of UdeC’s Department of Oceanography in Dichato.

The workshop-seminar called “Oceanic Culture and Marine Sciences” was organized by IMO’s Outreach team and other IMO scientists, who carefully designed a program according to the needs of science teachers. In fact, this pioneer pilot workshop was created in close collaboration with the Coihueco Department of Municipal Education Administration (DAEM), which realized that teachers needed to increase, consolidate and update their knowledge. In this regard, IMO’s Outreach deputy director Bárbara Léniz explained: “The idea was to listen to them, to figure out what they really needed and then design the best program for them.”

The group of teachers had an intensive and productive training day, during which the IMO team, including marine biologists, biophysicists and oceanographers, sought to help them to extend and update their knowledge with regard to a number of subjects related to the oceans.

The program was divided into two major themes: marine biodiversity and the motion of the ocean. In relation to the first theme, IMO scientists reviewed, both theoretically and practically, the fundamental concepts of the field, such as the different marine environments (ranging from the intertidal zone to the deep sea) and their inhabitants, the characteristics and environmental adaptations of the latter, as well as the trophic relations among them. They also analyzed various samples in the station labs, including living organisms in culture ponds and zooplankton fixed samples. The second theme, the motion of the ocean, included topics such as termohaline circulation, ocean gyres, natural phenomena and the accumulation of plastic in the ocean.

This training activity also covered a very important and relevant subject: the impact of human activity on the ocean. The event encouraged deep reflection on problems such as climate change, global warming, ocean deoxygenation, sea level rise and ocean acidification.

It is important to underline that such IMO events aim at providing science teachers not only with clear and precise concepts, but also with new teaching tools that could be incorporated into their teaching strategies. This is why the activities dealing with the two themes into which the event was divided included a number of simple, graphic experiments illustrating the concepts and phenomena, chiefly to help teachers to bring that knowledge into their classrooms, so that their students can begin to understand marine sciences.

At the end of this successful activity, Léniz highlighted “the teachers’ keen interest and readiness to learn: They recognized that they need more and longer workshops of this kind.” Yennifer Ortiz, communal coordinator of the primary school science subject, agreed with Léniz’s remark: “It is important to train teachers because this content is included in the curriculum and it is also important for our students due to the geographical area they live in.”

IMO will therefore continue to offer these opportunities to interested teachers, as it tries to cope with the growing demand and interest generated in the area’s school community, thus fulfilling one of the main objectives of the Institute: the dissemination of science to the public in a clear, friendly way. In fact, on December 28 this training activity will be repeated, this time with Penco teachers. Thus, IMO seeks to continue holding these workshops, which are necessary for science teachers to fulfil their tasks in an accurate, effective and efficient way, so that children can properly understand the natural and marine environments in which they grow up.

It should be noted that this event is part of the Outreach activities of the Millennium Science Initiative (ICM).