More information
Description
Portugal is mostly ocean, the underwater area will represent 97% (3.800.000km2) of the portuguese territory. portuguese strategic goals aim to double the economic importance of the ocean in a sustainable way. to do so, it is vital to change mindsets, beginning very early in education. kids dive main goal is to develop the ocean literacy of 120 young students (8-17 year-old), from portugal and norway, through the knowledge of the natural heritage that can be found underwater. to contribute to build a more informed, integrated and active society, we will offer a set of activities, including scuba diving, workshops on plastic pollution and on the protection of biodiversity and marine ecosystems. the project includes an evaluation of its own impact by surveys aimed to assess student awareness and changes in behaviour, promoting international cooperation and cultural sharing at the same time. all the expertise, as well as professional and technical means will be provided by the kids dive partners: ispa, crl ispa, crl instituição de ensino superior/mare centro de i&d, cms sintra municipality and two "blue schools" (eb2,3 agostinho da silva, sintra, in portugal, and jessheim videregående skole, in norway). together, we will successfully train a group of young ocean ambassadors. all handouts are included, namely: bilingual manuals and tutorials (which will enable the international expansion of the kids dive project), assessment surveys, portuguese and norwegians students’ projects on ocean protection and, finally, scientific outputs such as a master’s thesis and a paper in a scientific journal. this partnership between “blue schools” will also include student exchange, therefore increasing bilateral relationships. the success of this first international kids dive edition will increase international cooperation as far as the ocean literacy is regarded, through the exchange of practical experiences between students, teachers and r&d institutions.
Summary of project results
KIDS DIVE project goal is to raise awareness on the urgency of protecting marine biodiversity, promoting sustainability and contributing to raise awareness on the blue capital our common Ocean represents. This educational approach intends to empower a more pro-active blue generation. This project’s framework is to promote ocean literacy concepts among the young generations undersustainable development goals set by UNESCO (SDG’s 4, 12, 13, 14, 17). This program is also aligned with the Portugal commitment to raise the awareness on the sustainable use of our ocean trough the Blue School Programme by 2030 (Target 14.2).
The program took place between April and May and, overall, involved 120 students (14-15 years in Portugal and 16-17 years in Norway). The exchange included a subset of 9 students and 3 teachers from both countries. All participants were involved in the set of activities described above so that each one of them assume their future mission: to become ambassadors of the sea. The involvement of blue Schools (Portuguese + Norwegian) has successfully reinforced bilateral relationships with one of the donor states (Norway) and the fact that this project included inquiries to all participants allowed us to demonstrate the effective contribution of these activities.
The results of this evaluation process revealed thar Kids Dive was able to bridge the knowledge gap between school students and marine sciences. The results on changing attitudes were not as promising and should include further evaluations with different methodologies in the future. The whole program was designed in an integrated way to impact participants and those who interact with them directly, including teachers and family members.
Summary of bilateral results
The first Kids Dive international edition proved to be a success and took this project into a new level. This project proved to be effective not only in concept but also in practical terms with students from different countries and cultures. It raised several obstacles:- Structural ones, with a pandemic resulting in severe social isolation that lead our team to reinvent the entire program, with an actual scuba diving in a swimming pool becoming a virtual dive with VR360 goggles in the classroom;- Logistical ones, transporting all the program materials by airplane to Norway and developing activities in facilities that we were no able to evaluate before.In the end we were able to overcome these problems at different levels. Instead of a drawback we are nowincluding this new digital learning tool in Kids Dive baseline program as a supplemental tool for ocean literacy programs. We are now aware of the limitations imposed by transporting all the material needed by airplane and we have significantly reduced the size and weight of all didactic materials both for the swimming pool and the workshops.The program was such a success that conversations between our team and the Jessheim Videregående Skole teachers and students continued until recently. The objective is to further expand the kids Dive program with this and other blue schools and help to kick off an international program. This successful first international experience strengthens future collaborations, between the Portugal and the European blue school’s network and my include additional applications to larger programs (such as Erasmus +) in the future. To keep the teams in contact with each other, we recently co-organized a webinar “Kids Dive webinar on climate change and marine biology” (29 March 2023). Attending this webinar we had approximately 40 students from Jessheim Videregående Skole (Webinar program available Annex 16)