In the autumn of 2015, UN Environment, in cooperation with the Open University of the Netherlands, launched a massive open online course (MOOC) on Marine Litter. The MOOC was created in order to stimulate leadership, and offered opportunities for actionable and change-oriented learning related to marine litter within the framework of the Global Partnership on Marine Litter.
More than 6500 people signed up for the course which offered its participant two tracks: a leadership track and an expert track, and covered the following topics:
- The environmental impact and societal relevance of marine litter problems;
- Technical solutions, including alternatives and recycling,
- The governance of marine litter;
- Sources, processes, modelling and monitoring of marine litter;
- Designing and selecting effective strategies for marine litter;
- Awareness raising, education and outreach, and capacity building;
- Implementation of policies, laws, and market-based instruments;
- Skills to develop an action plan to reduce marine litter pollution.
UN Environment is launching a new MOOC in May 2017.
Building on our first massive open online course on marine litter which took place in 2015, this new course provides an updated take on the issue, presenting the latest knowledge and scientific insights, and takes into account feedback from some of some of the former students. It provides two different opportunities for learning: a two-week leadership track offering an overview of the issue; and an eight-week expert track for more in-depth information on microplastics, sea-based sources and governance. A new feature of the course is that, in the expert track, you can choose some of the components and shape your own learning experience. In addition, several parts and assignments have been made optional to make the course less time-consuming.
The course, which is carried out together with Open University will initially be offered in English, but a Spanish version is in the pipeline. Further on, the leadership track will be available in all six UN languages and Portuguese.
The goal of the course is to educate people on the issue of marine litter, and equip them to become leaders in their communities capable of inspiring local action on the issue.
