Escola Azul Brasil

Indigenous School in Mato Grosso do Sul: Translating the Ocean into Three Languages

An Indigenous school in Mato Grosso do Sul, part of the Blue School Network, led one of the program's most inspiring projects. While working on ocean literacy in the curriculum, the community realized that the local Indigenous language had no words for ocean-related terms. Children learned the concepts in Portuguese but could not share that knowledge with their villages.

The solution came from the community itself: creating words in the Indigenous language to express ocean concepts. The process was carried out with respect for cultural hierarchy, children explained the concepts, community leaders proposed the terms, and the entire community validated them collectively. The project, which connects three languages, transformed the community's relationship with the ocean, even though they live hundreds of kilometers away from the sea.

São Vicente Penitentiary Progression Center: Ocean Literacy in Rehabilitation

The "Comic Books and Ocean Literacy in the Prison System" project is a pioneering initiative that brings ocean literacy into the context of Youth and Adult Education (EJA) at the São Vicente Penitentiary Progression Center, with the Professor Paulo de Arruda Penteado State School as its affiliated school. The local community consists of students from São Vicente (SP), who have a direct relationship with the coastal environment and face challenges such as pollution and improper waste disposal, which impact ecosystems like the mangrove forests.

The project involves approximately 80 re-educatees distributed across five multi-grade classes, combining environmental education, ocean literacy, and educommunication. Comic books (HQs) are used as a pedagogical strategy to foster meaningful learning, creativity, expression, and participant agency.

Activities are organized in short cycles to accommodate the high turnover rate of the prison context and include stages of awareness-raising, study of marine and coastal ecosystems (with a focus on local mangroves), introduction to the language of comics, and original production by the re-educatees. The culmination is an exhibition of the comics at the Social Reintegration Conference, where participants act as guides, sharing the knowledge they produced.

The project seeks to engage the broader community through awareness campaigns, educational activities, and incentives for sustainable practices, strengthening environmental preservation and the connection to the local territory.

Bilingual School for the Deaf in Brasília: Inclusion and Ocean Literacy

In Brasília, Federal District, the Escola Pública Integral Bilíngue do Plano Piloto, which serves 40 deaf students with education in Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) and Portuguese, has integrated ocean literacy into its pedagogical project as a Blue School. The initiative promotes conceptual accessibility: terms and concepts from ocean literacy are taught in Libras, ensuring that deaf students have full access to knowledge about the ocean and sustainability. The school represents a milestone at the intersection of inclusion, linguistic rights, and environmental education, showing that ocean literacy must reach every child, in every language.

Actions Developed with Escola Azul Brasil

Ship to Shore with Schmidt Ocean Institute: The Classroom at the Bottom of the Sea

In 2026, over 1,700 students from Brazilian Blue Schools experienced an unprecedented event: connecting live, via Ship-to-Shore, with the research vessel R/V Falkor (too) from the Schmidt Ocean Institute during a scientific expedition along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the largest underwater mountain range on the planet.

Students from public and private institutions spoke in real time with researchers on board. The children were able to see images of hydrothermal vents exceeding temperatures of 200°C, ask questions directly to the crew, and understand how a cutting-edge oceanographic expedition works. The initiative not only brought high-level science to schools but also planted seeds of curiosity and belonging in young people who now see themselves as part of the Ocean Generation. Check this link

Schools Across the Ocean: A Bridge Between Brazil and the United Kingdom

The international program Schools Across the Ocean connected 24 Brazilian schools to 24 UK schools in a six-week immersion on climate literacy and ocean literacy. Students aged 9 to 12 took part in an unprecedented educational exchange, using storytelling, art, poetry, and science as communication tools.

Led by the University of Exeter in partnership with the British Council and Escola Azul Brasil, the program involved 26 researchers, 15 of them Brazilian from different regions, who interacted directly with the students. The transdisciplinary approach integrated science, art, film, and writing, allowing young people to express their perspectives and advocate for their communities.

The impact extends far beyond the classroom: the work produced by students, films, books, and posters were taken to international climate conferences (COP), ensuring that children's voices reach the spheres of political decision-making. More than a school exchange, the program builds the foundations for a sustainable future, stitching together friendships between children from two sides of the Atlantic. Check this link

Gold Medal Student in the Ocean Olympiad wrote and published a book

One of the most inspiring outcomes of the Ocean Olympiad (O2) is the story of student Renata Dias Peixer, who won the gold medal with her socio-environmental project and, based on this experience, she wrote and published a book: Niara, the Little Guardian of the Ocean.

The O2, which has already surpassed 62,000 registrations across its editions and reached one million people with projects in all 27 Brazilian states, has artistic, cultural, and technological production as one of its core categories. This student's journey, from the medal to the published book, shows how ocean literacy, when approached in a cross-cutting manner with student agency at its center, can unlock talents and generate works that perpetuate knowledge for society as a whole. Check this link

Link to the book