Is it really science vs. the humanities? A cross-discipline study mapping university students' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour toward ocean sciences issues

The ocean environment is an integral part of the Earth’s interconnected global ecosystem. Despite its immense scale and capacity to buffer changes, the ocean faces severe environmental challenges. Under the prism of Sustainable Development Goal 14 of the Agenda 2030 focusing on conserving and sustainably using the oceans, seas and the marine resources, and the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030), the present study attempts to highlight the persisting deficit in the Ocean Literacy field by focusing on two major categories of university students: those enrolled in Science and Humanities disciplines. Based on current research, the study argues that both fields can support ocean protection and sustainable management of its resources as content science knowledge is only one dimension that leads to pro-environmental attitudes and behaviour. In this regard, a structured questionnaire was administered to 495 university students from eight Science and Humanities Departments in Greece and Italy. The results showed low to moderate content knowledge, favouring science students, as expected, but common misconceptions were present. However, all students showed satisfactory pro-environmental attitudes and behaviour. These findings suggest that not only natural science experts, but anyone interested in the ocean can be receptive to scientific concepts, even if unfamiliar, such as those in ocean sciences.