CCC staff and volunteers went down to the Napantao Elementary School to engage with the local students!
Approximately 40 kids (ages 8-12), 7 volunteers, 2 presenters, catchy presentations and a high level of sound - this was the community day at Napantao Elementary School!
Under the lead of our Project Scientist, Rachel Knowles, and the current CCC scholar, Mary Jill Banta, the team in Philippines held a workshop about environmental protection at the local school.
First, Rachel explained to the kids about the different negative impacts on today's marine life such as global warming, overfishing, pollution, plastic and damage to corals by boats or people standing on them. The theory of global warming was not clear to all of the kids yet, however there were a few who were able to give a pretty exact description of what it's caused by and its consequences. Nevertheless, all of the kids were highly involved and gave examples of how the environment, and especially the oceans, are being damaged.
Rachel then introduced the need the need to create Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) such as the one we have here in Napantao. When asked how many kids' parents are fishers, there was quite a fair few of them with their hands in the air. So, all of them come down to the bay for a swim on a regular basis and are familiar with CCC and the MPA we have set up.
The positive impact of the MPA was then visualised with the help of a game. Two students played as fishers, who had to catch as many cardboard fish as possible from the sea over 3 rounds or weeks. Impacts such as trash also reduced the number of fish and at the end, the ocean was empty. When the game was played again with an MPA in place, the students saw that they and the ocean had more fish at the end of the 3 weeks than they did before. The MPA gave the fish inside an opportunity to grow in size which increases their value. It also allows the fish to produce more offspring, allowing the population to recover. Nicely done, Rachel!
Jill then gave a presentation about her current work in an indigenous school in the Mindanao uploads. It not only gave the kids from Napantao an idea about a totally different landscape and living environment, but also emphasised how youth are engaged in ecosystem protection, sustainable organic farming and natural building techniques. It was awesome to see how they followed Jill's descriptions and pictures of this different way of life.
For sure there was lots of room for fun and running around. Divided into three groups (Dolphin, Lionfish and Coral) with two volunteers per group, each team played the game "paint me a picture" against each other, with Rachel judging the best re-enactment of turtles stuck in fishing nets, people doing a beach clean, and snorkelling with a whale shark without touching it.
In the same groups, the kids then discussed ideas of how they will protect the environment now and, in the future, then presented their team's points to everyone in the class. Speaking for my group (Coral), everyone was involved and came up with feasible ideas like "cleaning the beach", "not stepping on corals" and "no littering".
The workshop ended with drawing and colouring, using photos and ID books of fish and coral for inspiration. Everyone drew their favourite marine animal, often consulting the volunteers to ask the name of a certain fish or by telling us the name first. Many children could identify butterflyfish, parrotfish and of course, Nemo.
It was loud, it was chaotic, it was lots of fun!