How is the ocean represented in school textbooks in Chile? An analysis of curricular content and images of marine fauna

Abstract

Although we are currently in the Decade of Ocean Sciences for Sustainable Development, Chile seems to be lagging behind in marine education. Research has shown the importance of animal imagery in generating a bond between students and their environment, and strengthening interest in conservation. The objective of this study is to contribute to ocean literacy research in Latin America, by describing coverage of ocean content in the Chilean primary school curriculum and textbooks. Content analysis was undertaken concerning textual and pictorial materials. Learning Objectives of the science primary curriculum were reviewed, and the number and type of fauna species shown in images were recorded. For each textbook, we recorded the number of marine and terrestrial animals, categorized endemic, native, and exotic species, and whether the name of the animal was labeled with the image. The results show that only three Learning Objectives of the primary curriculum explicitly define content associated with the ocean. Of the total animal images, slightly more than twenty percent are marine fauna. The great majority of the marine animals shown are native, however, most of the time the image is not reinforced with the name of the species. Considering that school textbooks are the foundation of formal education, this preliminary study indicates that there is a content deficit when teaching about the relevance of the ocean and its animal species in primary school textbooks in Chile, covering only three ocean literacy principles in the science curriculum. However, this study recognizes that important improvements have been made in prioritizing natural science teaching with images of native species.