The Role of Citizen Science in Promoting Ocean and Water Literacy in School Communities: The ProBleu Methodology

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is an article with 12 (twelve) authors.

The topic alluded to in the article is important and on the agenda, since the interest in mitigating the effects of climate change is a concern shared by all of us.

The authors present ProBleu, a recently funded EU project that will expand and support a network (The Network of European Blue Schools) created within the EU4Ocean Coalition for Ocean Literacy.

The core of the proposed methodology is facilitating school activities related to ocean

and water literacy through funding calls to sustain and enrich current school activities, and kick-start and support new activities. The outcomes of the project are anticipated to have wide and long-term impacts across society, oceanic, coastal and inland water environments.

Point 1, concerning the "Introduction", is well drafted. It provides an adequate explanation of the European Union context in this area and also alludes to the strategic goals of the United Nations. The central role of Education is emphasized, in a broad sense but especially in this specific context, not only to change mentalities, but also and above all, to change the current state of affairs. Time is short and the dichotomy "limits to growth" and "sustainable development", only as spectrum trends, is no longer reasonable if convergent balances are not equated.

The way in which ProBleu is presented, as a project promoting literacy about the oceans and water, seems appropriate to me. Perhaps it brings out an optimism above what is expected, but it is clear that the authors share the intentions associated with this initiative. In any case, it is a pity that point 1.1 has few biblical citations to support the argumentation that has been followed. It is also not clear why there is a point 1.1 if there is no point 1.2. Perhaps the unnecessary subdivision in 1.1 should be avoided.

As for point 2, on the proposed research, it has in its points 2.1 and 2.2, perhaps, a less good start, since, despite the nature of the communication carried out, I believe that there would be room for bibliographical support, i.e., some citations that would contribute to support the understanding followed.

In any case, the approach to pedagogical teaching methods, including challenge-based learning, design thinking, and science shops, seemed appropriate to me, as well as the proximity approach, the demand for ethical standards in the activities and processes, and also the issue of involving the interlocutors in the right commitments (including a list that seemed appropriate to me, where 6 points were included, but only 5 of them were explained, that is, the last one was not mentioned at all). In other words, the "Large-scale initiatives and programs" should also be explained).

As for point 3., regarding the anticipated results, the systematized way in which this reasoning was carried out and explained, through the presentation of KPI's, is to be commended.

As for point 4., referring to the discussion, we once again have an exhaustive description of the various aspects of the Project. In any case, the vulnerabilities and possible vicissitudes of the project, that is, the potential gaps and barriers, do not seem to me to be reasonably highlighted.

I believe that point 5, about the conclusions, explains my apprehension for an immediate acceptance of this article. The conclusions have only one paragraph, which seems to me to illustrate the need to place a greater bibliographic foundation throughout the text and especially in the aspects that I highlighted, and, not least, to place in a more transparent way what constitute the possible points weaknesses of the Project (or possible vulnerabilities). It is also necessary to strengthen this point, the conclusions, so that it becomes more grounded, even more so when it comes to an article to be written by 12 authors. A dozen authors are capable of writing conclusions longer than just a paragraph.

Author Response

This is an article with 12 (twelve) authors. The topic alluded to in the article is important and on the agenda, since the interest in mitigating the effects of climate change is a concern shared by all of us. The authors present ProBleu, a recently funded EU project that will expand and support a network (The Network of European Blue Schools) created within the EU4Ocean Coalition for Ocean Literacy. The core of the proposed methodology is facilitating school activities related to ocean and water literacy through funding calls to sustain and enrich current school activities, and kick-start and support new activities. The outcomes of the project are anticipated to have wide and long-term impacts across society, oceanic, coastal and inland water environments.

We thank the reviewer for taking the time to read our manuscript and for the suggested edits which have further improved the proposed work. The reviewer has understood well the purpose of the paper and we thank them for appreciating the importance of the topic.

Point 1, concerning the "Introduction", is well drafted. It provides an adequate explanation of the European Union context in this area and also alludes to the strategic goals of the United Nations. The central role of Education is emphasized, in a broad sense but especially in this specific context, not only to change mentalities, but also and above all, to change the current state of affairs. Time is short and the dichotomy "limits to growth" and "sustainable development", only as spectrum trends, is no longer reasonable if convergent balances are not equated.

The way in which ProBleu is presented, as a project promoting literacy about the oceans and water, seems appropriate to me. Perhaps it brings out an optimism above what is expected, but it is clear that the authors share the intentions associated with this initiative. In any case, it is a pity that point 1.1 has few biblical citations to support the argumentation that has been followed. It is also not clear why there is a point 1.1 if there is no point 1.2. Perhaps the unnecessary subdivision in 1.1 should be avoided.

We have removed the unnecessary subdivision and added further references to this section.

As for point 2, on the proposed research, it has in its points 2.1 and 2.2, perhaps, a less good start, since, despite the nature of the communication carried out, I believe that there would be room for bibliographical support, i.e., some citations that would contribute to support the understanding followed.

We have added references to sections 2.1 and 2.2.

In any case, the approach to pedagogical teaching methods, including challenge-based learning, design thinking, and science shops, seemed appropriate to me, as well as the proximity approach, the demand for ethical standards in the activities and processes, and also the issue of involving the interlocutors in the right commitments (including a list that seemed appropriate to me, where 6 points were included, but only 5 of them were explained, that is, the last one was not mentioned at all). In other words, the "Large-scale initiatives and programs" should also be explained).

Large-scale initiatives and programmes have been explained (line 283-286).

As for point 3., regarding the anticipated results, the systematized way in which this reasoning was carried out and explained, through the presentation of KPI's, is to be commended.

We thank the reviewer for the positive feedback on section 3.

As for point 4., referring to the discussion, we once again have an exhaustive description of the various aspects of the Project. In any case, the vulnerabilities and possible vicissitudes of the project, that is, the potential gaps and barriers, do not seem to me to be reasonably highlighted.

Thank you for this suggestion; we have added an extensive section on the limitations to the ProBleu-CS approach (section 4.3.8).

I believe that point 5, about the conclusions, explains my apprehension for an immediate acceptance of this article. The conclusions have only one paragraph, which seems to me to illustrate the need to place a greater bibliographic foundation throughout the text and especially in the aspects that I highlighted, and, not least, to place in a more transparent way what constitute the possible points 11 weaknesses of the Project (or possible vulnerabilities). It is also necessary to strengthen this point, the conclusions, so that it becomes more grounded, even more so when it comes to an article to be written by 12 authors. A dozen authors are capable of writing conclusions longer than just a paragraph.

We have expanded on the conclusion, which should now be more grounded on the literature, through the addition of further references throughout the manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

Good paper but, at least in my copy,  table 1 (that is crucial in my opinion) is not clearly presented. Perhaps, design of the table could be improved

Some little typing questions:

Line 150. Should be "resources"

Line 263. There is on "." not well put

Line 362. It should be 4.1.3

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for taking the time to read our manuscript and for the suggested edits which have further improved the proposed work.

Good paper but, at least in my copy, table 1 (that is crucial in my opinion) is not clearly presented. Perhaps, design of the table could be improved

The table has been reformatted.

Some little typing questions:

Line 150. Should be "resources"

(Now line 157) Amended.

Line 263. There is on "." not well put

(Now line 276) Corrected

Line 362. It should be 4.1.3

(Now line 386) Corrected.

Reviewer 3 Report

Please see comments in the file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear authors, thank you for the opportunity to read your research proposal and providing me insight in your interesting work. The research proposal presents the EU project ProBleu, a project promoting ocean and water literacy in school communities. The authors describe the project in detail, outlining not only its objectives, but also the planned research and development activities as well as expected results and impact. The research proposal is well structured and easy to read. In the following, I would like to make some comments that could further increase the comprehensibility of the proposal as well as emphasize the Citizen Science aspect in the proposal.

We thank the reviewer for taking the time to read our manuscript and for the suggested edits which have further improved the proposed work.

Section 1.1:

You define the objectives of ProBleu and present them in an elaborated and differentiated manner in this section. It might be helpful to label the four objectives (e.g., OBJ 1) so that you can easily refer to them later in the proposal and in particular in Table 1 (section 3).

We have labelled the four objectives in this section and related them to the table in section 3.

Section 2.2:  There is a typo in the heading.

Amended.

Section 2.4:

I would like to see the methodological considerations more strongly argued and supported by literature, e.g., from the field of science education research.

We have supported our methodology with further references from the field of science education.

Figure 1 is very impressive to me. However, as you do not really explain the figure and its elements, it is difficult for me to grasp what is represented in this figure and in which logic it has to be read. There are terms used in the figure that are not mentioned or used in the text. I would suggest to explain the figure or to explicitly refer to the corresponding parts of the figure in several places in the text to make the most of its potential.

Thank you for this suggestion; we have included a more detailed figure legend to accompany this figure, which has now been split into part A and B; the latter consisting of a timeline to also address feedback below.

Section 3:

I find the table with expected outcomes, expected results, and KPIs very catchy and helpful for presenting the project. Maybe it would be helpful to explicitly assign the rows of the table to the respective addressed objective.

The table has been reformatted and rows assigned to specific objectives.

Double check the spelling of SDGs, in some places you write SDG6, in other SDG 6.

Corrected all to “SDG6”.

Overall, a timeline could be helpful to get a better overview of the project activities and to get some idea of what should run when and how.

A timeline has been added to Figure 1 for clarity.

In its current form, the research proposal the Citizen Science part is rather underrepresented, since it is so present in the title. Probably, you can put some more emphasis on this aspect.

Thank you for this suggestion; we have made efforts to refer to citizen science activities and tools more explicitly throughout the text.

I really appreciate the topic this project deals with and wish you that the project will be a great success with a long-lasting effect. I hope the mentioned aspects will provide you some ideas for revising.

We thank the reviewer for their well-wishes!