Educational Platform for Marine Renewable Energy & Sustainable Development Education
One of the commitments of the Atlantic Technological University, highlighted in the strategic plan 2019-2023 is the commitment to global citizenship education, including on Initial Teacher Education Programmes preparing post primary teachers. Post primary education in the field of marine renewable energy is largely peripheral, in Irish education currently. This is even more pronounced in the case of Gaelscoileanna (Irish medium schools) where published educational resources in the field of marine renewable education are largely unavailable.
The Deep Learning initiative (The Development of Cross-disciplinary Post-primary Educational Resources to Promote Marine Renewable Energy and Sustainability Education), intends to develop cross-disciplinary post-primary educational resources to promote Marine Renewable Energy and Sustainability Education, at the post-primary level in Ireland.
Additional educational resources, available both in English and in Gaeilge, that support marine renewable and sustainability education are sourced from a selection of Irish organisations, and were included here to committ to sustainability education and to the promotion of the Irish language.
A post-primary inter-disciplinary Transition Year unit comprised of a 10-week planning grid, weekly lesson plans and accompanying educational resources, pertaining to marine renewable energy and sustainable development education.
A number of stakeholders collectively supported, and co-funded, the Atlantic Technological University-based research that led to the development and analysis of this Transition Year unit. These included: Atlantic Technological University (ATU), BlueWise Marine, Marine Institute, Údarás na Gaeltachta, and Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI).
The Transition Year unit was trialed – as a case study – in one Irish medium school (Gaelscoil) in the West of Ireland, namely, Coláiste Chroí Mhuire, An Spidéal, Co. Galway, located close to SmartBay, a Marine and Renewable Energy Test Site, and south of the Atlantic Marine Energy Test Site (AMETS).
This research study was supervised by Drs. Pauline Logue and Róisín Nash, Atlantic Technological University, Galway.
The postgraduate research team members were Micheál Walsh, Michael Faney, and Dearcán Ó Donnghaile.
Ethical approval was obtained from the Atlantic Technological University, which led the research. An inter-disciplinary Transition Year unit was developed by a qualified post primary teacher-researcher, including a marine renewable energy education planning grid, corresponding lesson plans and multi-media teaching resources
In support of
Conference attendance
Belfast and Donegal
The Environmental Science Association of Ireland (ESAI) and the Educational Studies Association of Ireland (ESAI) organise regularly national and international conferences on topics related to environmental education and research.
Drs. Pauline Logue and Róisín Nash, attended recently two separate events, one in Belfast by the Educational Studies Association of Ireland and one in Donegal by the Environmental Science Association of Ireland where they presented a video and a poster on Marine Renewable Energy and Sustainability education. Both outputs explore how including these topic in post-primary education using a series of digital resources can substantially increase knowledge in this field and increase ocean literacy awareness.
Below you can see the video presentation of Dr Pauline Logue and the poster from Dr Róisín Nash
