Between 13 December 2022 and 30 May 2023, ROSSIO Infrastructure – Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities (NOVA FCSH) will have its first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC): Caça à baleia e os portugueses (“Whale Hunting and the Portuguese”), organised in partnership with the UNESCO Chair “The Cultural Heritage of the Oceans”.

Coordinated by Gonçalo Melo da Silva (NOVA FCSH – IEM; ROSSIO Infrastructure) and Nina Vieira (NOVA FCSH – CHAM; 4-OCEANS), the course explores the (in)temporalities and (im)materialities of the maritime cultural heritage related to whale hunting conducted by the Portuguese in different geographies (Portugal, Atlantic Islands, Brazil) from the Middle Ages to the Contemporary Period. Marking the inauguration of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030), we aim here to highlight the role of the Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities (HSSC) in facing environmental challenges (local and global) and their contribution to Ocean Literacy.

By navigating between the territories of History, Archaeology, Anthropology, Museology, Biology and Marine Ecology (among others), this course is particularly aimed at teachers and school groups (EI/EB/ES), cultural institution technicians, tourism professionals, higher education students and researchers, and may also arouse the curiosity of a wider public interested in deepening their knowledge about maritime activities and communities and their impact on ecosystems and populations throughout history (and memory).

The course is certified and its Program has been designed based on digital resources and audiovisual content made available by the ROSSIO infrastructure, organised into four distinct/complementary sections: 1) Discovering the natural environment; 2) Capturing whales; 3) Transforming whales; 4) Preserving, remembering and exploring maritime heritage.

Consult the Course Program and Learning Objectives here

This course is free of charge and takes place on the NAU Platform (FCT-FCCN), open permanently from 13 December to 30 May 2023, with an estimated duration of no more than 10 hours. The student will be able to register on the platform at any time and manage their course autonomously and flexibly, since it is an online training (asynchronous) program. Assessment will take place at the end of each section through the completion of multiple choice tests. If you obtain a final result of more than 50%, you can download a digital certificate of participation from the course “progress” tab.

Enrolments take place on the NAU Platform until the end of the course. To do so, you need only register in accordance with the instructions provided on the ROSSIO Portal.

For further information, please contact us at rossio@fcsh.unl.pt.