More information
Description
The Blue Games are all about getting a selection of student''s teams from several candidate schools in a worldwide unique and pioneer event format, that gives them the opportunity to show what they learned and know about the Ocean. A healthy competition with team games focused on the several areas of Ocean literacy. Associated with a national communication plan, capable of reaching out and influence society, the games intend to educate for the future of the planet, through fun activities that will change behaviors.
Summary of project results
The Blue Games pilot event was created to bring Ocean Literacy to young students in Portugal, in a fun and behavior changing way. Despite the several initiatives at schools addressing this subject, there seems to be a continuous lack of interest and knowledge of the Ocean. We believe that getting the students out to the beach, experiencing several kinds of activities next to the Ocean, in a competition format, would capture their full attention and make way for a passionate connection to the Ocean. At the same time understanding its importance for their lives and ultimately it will result in better choices everyday towards a sustainable Ocean.
Was organized a half a day event, where 48 students from 2 schools, between 14 to 16 years old, participated in specific games created around the Ocean subject, for them to compete both in the sand and in the water. They applied in 8 teams of 6, by sending a 30s video showing “What is Ocean Literacy?” for them.
The games were:
1) Identifying 10 different species of real fish
2) Beach clean up with a time limit
3) Race like a sea animal stuck on a ghost net or plastic
4) Learning knots and repeating them + rope challenge
5) Stand Up Paddle races
6) Kayak races
7) Quiz with 30min of questions about several Ocean Literacy topics
8) Blue Games in human writing on the sand
These games are important because the students are forced to think about an Ocean subject presented in the briefing and put their highest effort to score better than the other teams in that matter. The result was connecting with the Ocean, while having fun at the same time.
As a result, we believe that by testing this innovative method of learning, we got the students closer to the Ocean topics in a way that is more attractive and that will change their future behaviours. Some of the students had never been on a kayak or stand-up paddle, most have never participated in a beach clean-up, nor were able to distinguish common fish species that they eat regularly. We also noticed a strong improvement between the Ocean literacy quiz made before and during the games.
We managed to get a big news piece from the main public TV channel, amongst a total of 16 news that spread the word to an audience of more than 544.000 persons, a wrap up video from the games that was shared online and allowed us to reach 290.000 persons more, as well as get the interest of 26 schools for next editions, that are being planned. We strongly believe that if students start practicing water sports in the ocean, they will relate to the Ocean and naturally do as much as they can do to preserve it or support the ones who can.
Thanks to this pilot event, we have more tools to present the games in several cities around the country and capture the interest of the mayors to fund next editions, since schoolteachers and students already show a lot of interest in participating.