(NEWS) Malmö Latin High School Visits WMU

November

2019

Malmö Latin High School Visits WMU

The World Maritime University (WMU) had the pleasure of welcoming 60 students from Malmö Latin School, an upper secondary school in Malmö, to participate in interactive and creative workshops focused on the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The visit took place on United Nations Day, 24 October, and focused on solutions to meet the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular, Goal 6 focused on water and sanitation, and Goal 14 focused on the ocean.

Two groups of students from the school’s Humanist and International Programmes had the opportunity to act as “Junior Researchers” for the day. They were aided by topic experts from WMU staff as well as PhD students from WMU doctoral studies in Maritime Affairs, under the Land-to-Ocean Leadership Programme that is made possible by The Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management (SwAM) and the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure.

The students were introduced to WMU and its role as an academic institution and centre of excellence for maritime and ocean postgraduate education, research, and capacity building, and its establishment within the framework of the International Maritime Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations. Further, the students were familiarized with the University's efforts and work connected to the SDGs as well as the initiatives of the WMU-Sasakawa Global Ocean Institute.

As Junior Researchers, the students worked together in four groups to tackle crucial water and ocean topics including: 1) Climate Change and Sea Level Rise, 2) Human Activities and Impact on the Ocean 3) Sustainable Fisheries and Marine Protected Areas and 4) Land-to-Ocean Interface. The discussions introduced the students to the many challenges the global ocean faces including the increasing diversity and intensity and impact of resources extracted through human activities. This led to discussion of the complexity of legal, economic and societal dimensions to ocean issues including social injustice and the general lack of regulation enforcement. Each group then developed a research poster on their topic summarizing key challenges and potential solutions to present to the larger group.

One student remarked that it is possible for everyone to make a difference, saying, “we have not done enough for sustainability. It starts with small initiatives, like picking up litter while hanging out on the beach or on the way to the bus after school”. Overall, the workshop sparked great interest among the students and revealed a true motivation to tackle the issues facing our world ocean that will affect all of us as well as future generations. “I was not aware of all of this before today. Now I know so much about about these topics, and only after one day,” said one of the participants.

In wrapping up the workshop, Professor Ronán Long, Director of the WMU-Sasakawa Global Ocean Institute, thanked the students for their enthusiasm and participation saying, “WMU is your UN University in Malmö. We hope to see you in the future and perhaps some of you for your post-graduate studies”.

The World Maritime University extends its gratitude and thanks to Malmö Latin School for including WMU in their UN Day activities. The University welcomes further collaborations with local schools and the community to engage youth and give back to the community with building capacity locally in Malmö.

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