A practical approach to marine biology

Abstract

With a 272 km-long coastline, a sea area 20 times that of the land surface area, and a benign climate, the Maltese Islands' environment is tailor-made for the teaching of practical marine biology. Although the need for such training is there, because of financial constraints the last such course was held way back in the 1970s, when the islands had their own marine station at Fort St Lucian, Marsaxlokk. In October 2002, an opportunity to fill this academic lacuna presented itself - in the form of the UNESCO Participation Programme administered locally by the Malta National Commission for UNESCO. Professor Patrick J. Schembri, of the Department of Biology of the University of Malta, applied to UNESCO for funds to set up of a marine biology course within the Bachelor of Science academic curriculum. UNESCO thought this to be sufficiently important for developing the country's human resource base that in June 2003 they awarded a grant for this purpose.