ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. STEM Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1665829
A Comparative Study of Ocean Literacy Features in the Science Curricula of China and the United States: Promoting Oceanic Power through Formal Education
Provisionally accepted
- Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Ocean Literacy(OL), as a core element in enhancing citizens' Ocean Awareness, has gained wide attention in the field of education. This study applies content analysis, based on the Ocean Literacy Framework(OLF), to review how the OLF is incorporated into the science curriculum standards of China and the United States. The review encompass the scope of OL principles in the documents, their frequency of occurrence, and the forms in which they are represented in the science curriculum standards of both countries. Distinct from previous studies, this study introduces Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA). It uses the principles of OL as network nodes. The structural differences between the OL epistemic networks of the two countries are compared based on node size and their interrelations. This approach reflects the ocean education philosophies of the two countries. The results showed that the science curriculum of both countries covered the seven principles. They also presented significant similarities and differences in the different levels of analysis. In addition, the ENA analysis further showed that China emphasizes the ocean education philosophy of "human-sea relationship", while the United States emphasizes the ocean education philosophy of "interdisciplinary perspective to explain the principles of ocean system and ocean science". These findings reveal the strengths and weaknesses of OL cultivation in both countries, and provide empirical evidence for improving Ocean education in Formal Education.
Keywords: ocean literacy1, Science Curriculum2, Formal Education3, Content Analysis4, China5, the United States4
Received: 16 Jul 2025; Accepted: 08 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lu, Cheng, Wang, Zhang and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Shi Chen, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.