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Description
Marine litter is one of our most detrimental and growing visible environmental challenges with plastic accumulating in the world oceans. Beach clean-ups are a good way of removing marine litter from our environment but the very best solution, regardless, is to prevent litter from ever ending up in it. "The Plastic Detectives of Portugal" is a combination of academic knowledge sharing, educational outreach, and eye-opening practical work. The project plans to help facilitate a beach clean-up implemented by a relevant Blue School nearby Faro, Portugal and challenge the participating pupils to reflect upon the sources and reasons for marine litter. Two different workshops will be carried out: one on for co-educators and peer researchers on marine litter in order to share knowledge and compare the nature of marine litter between the Norwegian and the Portuguese Atlantic coast; and the other one for up to 350 Blue Schools’ pupils on the various qualities of marine litter. The pupils will be challenged to reflect upon the origin, time and distance transportation of litter in the ocean.
This project wants to increase the level of ocean literacy among young people and in the society at large. By challenging the pupils to identify the sources of the litter and then suggest solutions based on its origin, we hope to inspire and motivate children and school staff so that they create an experience of having personally contributed in a larger campaign against marine litter.
In Norway SALT is recognized as a specialist partner on macro marine litter, and in national and international research on marine litter, such as “Deep Dive” project.
In Portugal CCVAlg contributed in several science and promotion projects in the last years, dealing with sustainability and marine litter awareness.
These two organizations are collaborating for the first time, both striving to increase the level of ocean literacy in younger population and to share knowledge and best practices.
Summary of project results
SALT Lofoten AS (SALT) and Centro Ciência Viva do Algarve (CCVAlg) received funding from EEA grants Norway Portugal for a collaborative project aimed at sharing knowledge about plastic pollution with students from schools in the Faro area in Algarve, Portugal. CCVAlg is a science outreach centre with long experience in communicating science to young people, and close connections to the schools in the area. SALT is a consulting company focusing on marine pollution, marine management, and coastal development. SALT has long experience in working with marine litter, including doing outreach about the topic, and has developed the workshop Plastic Detectives for school groups in Norway.
Through Plastic Detectives Portugal (PlasticDetektivePT), the workshop was carried out in local Blue Schools (Escola Azul) in the Faro region, led by SALT in collaboration with CCVAlg. These are schools which have joined an educational programme with goals of improving ocean literacy in schools, to inspire young people´s understanding and contribution to ocean sustainability. The project was the first collaboration between the two partners. The Plastic Detectives workshop is based on a methodology for categorizing beach litter, “Deep Dive”, which is a research protocol developed by SALT1 . The Plastic Detectives is a simplified version of the protocol, specially adapted for students aged 12-15 to study the nature and sources of marine pollution. Knowing the fractions of the litter is essential for learning about the sources and distribution of environmental litter, and for targeting measures to fight pollution.
The aim of the workshop was for the students to get an overview of the ocean litter problem, and to inspire awareness about the environment in young people. By participating in beach clean-ups, categorization of the collected litter, and reflecting about the findings from beaches in their local area, the workshop was aimed to give a holistic view of pollution, and inspire to further, long-time engagement. To reflect on the origin and consequences, and our own role in the issue, the students were asked the following questions: 1) Where did this object come from? 2) Why did it end up in the ocean? 3) For how long has it been in the ocean? 4) How can we prevent it from ending up in the ocean? In total the five school groups from João da Rosa sorted 3886 litter objects, with a total weight of 104 kg. The two school groups classes participating from Afonso III sorted altogether 2490 objects, with a total weight of 68 kg.
Summary of bilateral results
The international collaboration provided mutual cultural experiences, shared knowledge, and perspectives between our two countries. The students were given a presentation drawing examples from effects of ocean litter in Norway. During the workshop, while categorizing the litter from the Algarve beaches, the students got familiar with the character of pollution in their own area, receiving useful feedback. Students approached after the workshop saying they enjoyed it very much, and some students even said they were inspired to work with science in the future. The project partners were lucky to collaborate with teachers that were engaged in the topic and helped motivating their students by starting discussions. They encouraged wider discussions about the topic, like how they could be more aware of littering and about local littering issues in the region. The teachers planned to bring back the topic and results from the workshop later in the curriculum and to use the activity books for further study of the issue in school. An evaluation meeting was held after the project, and one of the teachers shared that the results from the workshop will be used in another research project (Coastwatch). The data and results from the workshop will be useful to compare litter types with other locations in the project. This project is also related with Blue schools, and in this way the data from the Plastic Detectives become important in further education of marine pollution among the students. The partners were dedicated, creative and helped each other mutually through the whole project, and the well-established contact opens opportunities for new collaborations in the future. As the bottom line of the project, the partners of the project are relieved to say that the workshop was successfully carried out, provided the knowledge and awareness and good collaborations it aimed to.