Exploring Maritime Learning Contexts in Remote Island Schools

Learning in island regions often faces challenges in connecting classroom instruction with students’ maritime environments and everyday experiences. This study explored the maritime learning context in elementary schools located in island areas as a foundation for developing the Islands-Enhanced Project-Based Learning (IE-PjBL) model. The study employed the exploration phase of Educational Design Research (EDR). Participants included twenty-two sixth-grade students, two elementary school teachers, one community leader, one fisherman, and two observers from schools in Pangkajene and Islands Regency, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Data were collected through observations, interviews, document analysis, and assessments of maritime literacy and creative problem-solving skills. The findings revealed that island environments provide rich opportunities for contextual learning, as reflected in high scores for maritime environmental issues (100%), maritime economic activities (93.75%), local maritime transportation and technology (93.75%), and the potential implementation of IE-PjBL (92.50%). However, instructional documents showed limited integration of maritime literacy (37.50%) and creative problem-solving skills (40.63%). Students demonstrated a high level of maritime literacy (65.63%), particularly in identifying coastal environmental problems (84.09%) and environmentally responsible behaviors (95.45%). In contrast, understanding of coastal and marine ecosystems remained low (18.18%). Creative problem-solving skills were categorized as moderate (49.55%), with fluency identified as the weakest dimension (29.55%). These findings highlight the need for a learning model that integrates maritime contexts, PjBL, and creative problem-solving experiences. The results provide an empirical foundation for the development of IE-PjBL in island schools.