Studying Marine Education at
Tertiary Institutions in Australia

This section takes a look at studying marine education. Those wishing to work in the area of marine education will need two types of qualifications ie education and environmental studies. The types of careers using marine education qualifications will mainly fall into two areas ie marine education for students or marine education for the general public. For the former there is teaching work such as schools, marine education centres or tertiary institutions. The latter will encompass ecotourism, government departments, industry organisations and consultants. Some of course, will cover both students and the general public like working in aquariums.

Griffith University QLD

Griffith University in just about on the beach. They offer several courses that could qualify you for work in marine education:

School of Environmental and Applied Science: Bachelor of Environmental Science; Bachelor of Science in Ecotourism
Australian School of Environmental Studies: Graduate Certificate in Environmental Education; Master of Environmental Education and Master of Environmental Education with Honours, allows students the options to make choices in terms of the content areas, they could focus on marine studies.

Southern Cross University
NSW Lismore

SCU has the School of Environmental Science and Management with a Bachelor of Applied Science. Students can major in Coastal Management or Marine Science. Every year some students from this course become Discovery Rangers with the National Parks and Wildlife Service and provide interpretative experiences for families in the school holidays or at educational events. They are land, coastal and marine activities.

SCU also has offered environmental education as a unit for the education students (primary teachers). This has given them a comprehensive look at the NSW curriculum documents and resources for Environmental Education (EE). It has provided an excellent background and inspiration for including EE in their teaching. Currently it is not on offer.

Marine Studies at Queensland University of Technology

QUT Faculty of Education offers Graduate Certificates in Education: Marine Studies and Marine Studies Advanced. They are designed to promote the teaching of Marine Studies in schools and directly addresses the way in which marine studies is taught. If taken at the Masters level, the Certificate will provide an academic base for further postgraduate studies in marine education. For the former, the units are Marine Studies Curriculum, Independent Study, Initiatives in Science Education. In the Advanced the units are Marine Studies Curriculum, Independent Study and Learning and Teaching in Science Education. They are offered at QUT and Open learning mode.

For information contact Faculty of Education QUT, edn_enq@qut.edu.au Telephone 07 3864 3948

Masters of Education with the Faculty of Education at Deakin University
Rebecca Solah NT MESA Representive

In 1993 Annette Greenall Gough wrote that environmental education seeks to provide lifelong learning experiences through which people may take a place in society as informed, committed and active citizens who are capable of playing a part in making their society a better place in which to live, by caring about the needs of all species, and by speaking out an acting against social and ecological injustice (1).

Rebecca Solah displaying the MESA World Environment Day colouring competition winners. Don’t we all love the seahorse.

I always knew that teaching in any form had a significant impact on society but when I began teaching environmental education eight years ago, as an inexperienced, unqualified but highly passionate young New South Wales Parks and Wildlife Discovery Ranger, I had no idea what impact I was making on society.
EE at Deakin Uni.

In 1999 I completed my science degree and decided that I wanted to go further with environmental education, enrolling in environmental education subjects with Deakin University, Victoria in 2001. During the following twelve months of study my individual role, intentions and practices as an environmental educator changed significantly. By understanding a little bit more about the development of environmental education and the competing views of sustainability, I not only became a more educated ‘environmental educator’ but through my experiences and studies I learnt that environmental education is a field of professional practice that is essential to improving the quality and sustainability of our natural and social environments. Comparing my own environmental education teaching to the others reviewed in one of the subjects has made me analyse my own teaching and will hopefully assist me in generating a sustainable society through environmental education.

Environmental education is part of the Masters of Education with the Faculty of Education at Deakin University and for more information you can visit their website at www.deakin.edu.au. The subjects I studied were EME724 Trends and Issues in Environmental Education and EME725 Foundations of Environmental Education. In ‘Trends and Issues in Environmental Education’ we evaluated a number of case studies of innovative environmental education programs, analysing world trends in environmental education. In ‘Foundations of Environmental Education’ we looked at the nature, scope, purposes, processes and history of environmental education, exploring the implications of viewing environmental education as a socially critical/transformative activity. The lecturers Annette Greenall Gough and Ian Robottom provide great resources for the subject and an invaluable learning experience.

(1) Greenall Gough, A. (1993), Founders in Environmental Education, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria.

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