PHAROS attends the EMSEA Conference 2025 in Belgium that reunits marine educators from all Europe  

• November 26, 2025

From 17 to 19 September, the EMSEA Conference took place in Ostend, Belgium. This annual conference is the largest gathering of marine educators in Europe, bringing together around 150 people from different countries, and is led by the European Marine Science Educators Association (EMSEA).

Read the article from our Project Coordination partner PLOCAN.

Eli Bonfill (ICM-CSIC), Silvia Martin and Teresa Holgado (PLOCAN) attended from the PHAROS project to draw inspiration from other experiences related to Blue Schools and ocean culture, and to apply this new knowledge to PHAROS’ living labs and its work with educational centres. 

This annual event brings together marine education professionals from across Europe to discuss the future of ocean literacy, among other topics. This year featured round tables on ocean literacy and the blue economy, ocean literacy and education, shaping public perception of the sea, ocean literacy and advocacy, and a specific session on Ocean Literacy at the North & Baltic Sea, as a lack of initiatives in this area was identified and EMSEA is strongly committed to its development and the consolidation of a stable group in the region. 

The Blue Schools had their own session on the first afternoon, moderated by Dominika Wojcieszek, EMSEA technical staff member and head of the Network of Blue Schools secretariat. This session featured the experience of SHORE project on how to take students from classroom to the coastline, a showcase of ProBleu catalogue of educational resources, the blue experiences in Croatian schools developed under BlueLightS project, and the inspiring case of the Spanish Network of Blue Schools (presented by Eli Bonfill, researcher from ICM-CSIC leading the Blue Schools task in PHAROS). 

In the Education session, our colleagues from PLOCAN Silvia Martin and Teresa Holgado (involved on Blue Schools tasks in PHAROS in the Canary Islands living lab), presented the EduSens and EduBlue Experiences in the Canary Islands where they promote marine sensor-based and DIY learning with secondary students. 

The conference finished with a visit to the Sea Experience Lab and the Marine Robotics Centre of Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) , and with 3 workshop about how to strenghthen blue education in Europe, how living labs can help to cocreate ocean literacy with communities, and how to refine the Ocean Literacy Principles.