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Traditional mining practices result in several environmental impacts, prompting the exploration of alternatives, like mining the ocean floor. This method offers a potentially less invasive way to obtain critical minerals. Notwithstanding, our understanding of the ocean ecosystem, which is crucial to Earth\u2019s life support system, is still too limited. This study aimed to assess an educational intervention on sea mining for polymetallic nodules while improving scientific literacy and system thinking and supporting Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 4, 13, and 14. A pre-\/post-intervention design was implemented with 17 adolescents (aged 12\u201316 years) from an underprivileged non-formal context. The mixed-methods approach involved role-playing and modelling activities focused on the question: \u201cDo you agree with mining polymetallic nodules in deep-sea waters\u201d? The Wilcoxon test revealed that the intervention changed participants\u2019 opinions about the theme, showing a statistically significant difference in student responses before and after the intervention (Z = \u22122.165; p = 0.030). A content analysis showed enhanced argumentation, understanding of Earth\u2019s subsystems, and decision-making abilities. These findings suggest that the educational resource positively impacted students\u2019 scientific literacy on the topic. This approach can be extended to other contexts and inform future investigations.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/su17020688","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,1,16]],"date-time":"2025-01-16T09:58:36Z","timestamp":1737021516000},"page":"688","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["Scientific Literacy to Address Sustainability: A Study on Deep-Sea Mining Education with Adolescents from a Social Care Institution"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"17","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4807-9494","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Marta","family":"Paz","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research (CIIMAR), 4450-208 Matosinhos, Portugal"},{"name":"Science Teaching Unit, Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto, 4169-007 Porto, Portugal"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4524-9788","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Clara","family":"Vasconcelos","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research (CIIMAR), 4450-208 Matosinhos, Portugal"},{"name":"Science Teaching Unit, Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto, 4169-007 Porto, Portugal"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,1,16]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"784","DOI":"10.1038\/s41893-020-0558-x","article-title":"Challenges to the sustainability of deep-seabed mining","volume":"3","author":"Levin","year":"2020","journal-title":"Nat. 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