Ocean Seminar: NEOMA leverages science to raise student awareness about the ecological transition

Straight in at the deep end: to mark the start of the new academic year, MiM M1 students dived into a two-day seminar about the ocean, giving them the opportunity to attend talks by scientists and work together in groups. The goal was to raise these future decision-makers’ awareness of scientific literacy.

The starting point: the paradox of the ecological transition 

NEOMA’s CSR department began with a simple observation: on the one hand, the ecological transition is widely discussed; on the other, ecosystems keep deteriorating, biodiversity keeps falling and climate disruption keeps worsening. It may be that leaders are not sufficiently informed or do not have all the necessary data, and are even less aware of the importance of scientific literacy. As a result, NEOMA, which trains the decision-makers of tomorrow, decided to bring scientific knowledge into its lecture halls and classrooms. For the start of the MiM M1 year, the School organised a two-day seminar combining talks and group work on the theme of the ocean. 

Educating tomorrow’s leaders about scientific literacy

NEOMA’s OCEAN seminar draws on a number of concrete approaches. The first is to give students a clear sense of what science actually is. Because science is not a matter of opinion, they learn to assess the reliability of information. The second component is to invite scientists to come to NEOMA to share and popularise their expertise. This is also a way to create a dialogue between two worlds that are not accustomed to talking to each other. The third component involves refining the theme and exploring the ocean in greater depth by focusing on four “worlds”: fishing, particularly overfishing; the coastline, where the land meets the sea; pollution in all its forms, from plastics to noise, light and beyond; and maritime transport, a pillar of global trade.

A teaching method that engages the mind, body and heart 

The fourth key component of this OCEAN seminar is its educational approach, which is informed by methods developed by the Campus of Transition and Schumacher College, which engage the mind, body and heart. The students begin by exploring their topic through a talk given by scientists before working with science communication materials developed with the digital media outlet Océans Connectés. They then delve deeper into an aspect they find especially interesting, drawing in particular on mind maps that make sense of the interdependencies between living organisms and economic activities. The ultimate goal is for each student to be able to convert scientific knowledge into arguments intended for the world of business.

Two values guide the entire approach: respect for the living world and humility — the humility to recognise that we cannot master such complex issues alone, and that we need to learn how to work with science. The teachers themselves take on the role of facilitators rather than positioning themselves as experts.

Each edition of the seminar reaches around 1,400 students across several campuses. Over the past two years, nearly 2,800 students from NEOMA Business School have been educated about the challenges facing the ocean and their links to the business world.