THE PROCLAMATION TODAY, JUNE 8, ON THE OCCASION OF WORLD OCEANS DAY

The last challenge is planned in Sicily at the beginning of the next school year.
For winning classes prize travel to Malta and Sicily and joining conservation researchers studying cetaceans in Sicily

The secondary school students of “De La Salle College”, Birgu (Vittoriosa) and “St. Martin’s College”, Swatar, of Malta and the students of the first classes gathered at the Istituto Omnicomprensivo di Lampedusa, won the first two of the three challenges foreseen within the SEA MARVEL project.

The class from Malta won a four-day trip to Sicily to discover the island’s biodiversity, through the visit of the MPA Marine Protected Area Isole Ciclopi and the Simeto Integrated Nature Reserve in the company of peers of the Sicilian school involved in the project. The travel will most likely take place in the third week of next September. 

Instead, the Lampedusa class that participated in the online challenge together with classes from Giarre and Milazzo won a field trip with researchers studying cetaceans and their conservation.

The third challenge, the one that will be held in Catania in September this year among the classes from the city that joined the project, will identify the winning class that will fly to Malta, also for four days to discover the natural riches of the Maltese Natura 2000 Network and in particular the Gozo site and that of the Ghar Lapsi and Filfa Marine Protected Area, and meet the classes from the island that joined the project. 

Challenge-Based Learning is an educational methodology through which pupils of all age groups are asked to engage in identifying solutions to problems that directly affect them. As part of the SEA MARVEL project, girls and boys discussed issues related to the protection and conservation of the marine environment and its biodiversity and then came up with creative solutions to encourage the involvement of the entire community in the discovery and enhancement of the Sea.

The announcement of the winners comes on June 8, World Oceans Day. On this occasion, the UN reminds us that “The ocean covers most of the Earth, but only a small portion of its waters has been explored. Despite humanity’s utter reliance on it and compared to the breadth and depth of what it gives us, the ocean receives only a fragment of our attention and resources in return.”