This story is a part of the GenOcean campaign — an official Ocean Decade campaign showcasing Decade Actions, collaborating organizations and ocean leaders that focus on youth and citizen science opportunities to help anyone, anywhere be the change the ocean needs.
At 15 years old, Caroline Schio learned how to scuba dive. That experience opened her eyes to the immense beauty and fragility of the marine environment, and she realized how impactful it could be to connect other young people to the ocean.
In 2012, Schio’s vision took shape in Garopaba, a small fishing village in southern Brazil. There, she founded Monitoramento Mirim Costeiro (MMC), or Junior Coastal Monitoring. The project began as a way to engage children in hands-on citizen science, allowing them to explore the coastal ecosystem through a scientific lens. Armed with magnifying glasses, microscopes and other research tools, these young “Ocean Guardians” ventured out onto the beach to uncover hidden treasures in the sand, from tiny marine creatures to delicate seaweed.
“I’ve been amazed at how many students, even those from coastal communities, have never truly interacted with the ocean,” Schio reflects. “I started MCC as a project that could help open their eyes to the wonders of marine life and the importance of protecting it.”
What began as a local initiative has grown into a movement, with MMC reaching over 10,500 students and 490 teachers across Brazil and Portugal, all while helping to shape the next generation of environmental leaders.
“MMC’s mission is to instill a sense of responsibility and love for the ocean in children, transforming them into informed, active participants in its preservation,” says Schio. “We accomplish this by connecting them directly to the ocean and methods for collecting ocean data. Students learn to monitor the coastlines, measure water quality, observe tide levels and record wind direction, all while collecting valuable data for real-world research.”
But Schio and her team could not be in all places at once. With so many coastal communities that could benefit from MMC’s citizen science programming, Schio recognized her in-person facilitation of the projects was limiting her impact. That is when she developed the teacher training program in 2021. Schio shifted her focus to empowering teachers with the knowledge and tools needed to guide students in citizen science. This approach has allowed MMC to scale rapidly, reaching new communities far beyond its origins in Brazil.
Schio, an oceanographer-turned-science educator, decided to further advance MCC’s impact by researching the effectiveness of the teacher training program in her doctoral project at the University of Lisbon in Portugal. Schio helped Portuguese schools adopt MCC’s teacher training into their curricula and held feedback sessions to understand the challenges and limitations of the training and subsequent citizen science projects.
“I have gained valuable insight from my Ph.D. that has allowed me to improve the teacher training program over the last four years,” she says. “I’m really looking forward to focusing on the implementation of my research full time once I defend my thesis and complete my degree in October.”
But Schio doesn’t need to wait until then to reflect on her accomplishments. In 2023 MCC became an endorsed Ocean Decade Project addressing three Decade Challenges:
1 – Understand and beat marine pollution;
9 – Skills, knowledge, technology and participation for all; and
10 – Restore society’s relationship with the ocean.
In 2024, Schio and her team surpassed all of their original Decade Action goals. The following year, MCC was recognized for its significant contributions to ocean education, literacy and stewardship, and named as a Lighthouse Project of the Blue Schools Global Network.
“Because we were able to develop MCC and the teacher training program with feedback from real users, we achieved all of our Ocean Decade goals within the first year,” says Schio. “So naturally, we have bigger goals. In the second half of the decade, we aim to develop a digital platform for teacher training to extend citizen science impact even further, adapting content to different aquatic environments such as mangroves, lagoons and rivers, different languages and different education levels from preschool to high school. We are also working with marine scientists to improve the database of MCC citizen science projects to allow our data to be used in real research projects.”
How can you get involved?
Schio’s high-school vision of connecting youth with the ocean has since turned into a research-backed and internationally successful program that enables teachers and community leaders anywhere in the world to run citizen science projects, collect real and useful data and empower the next generation of ocean leaders.
For more information or to get involved, visit the MMC website and connect with the team through social media. Whether you’re a teacher, student or community member, there’s an entry point for anyone to participate in the teacher training and help empower citizen science in your own community.
Read more GenOcean stories on our webpage.
