Marine Litter Exhibition: This year we were very happy to be exhibiting in the largest Municipality of Greece, the city of Athens. The exhibition was displayed in Athens for four weeks, open for Greek teachers, students and free visitors, with no entrance fees.
Events for Greek teachers and students: Two afternoon seminars were held on 1st and 3rd October, where 50 Greek educators have been trained on the material Know Feel Act to Stop Marine Litter with many of them, revisiting the exhibition with their students. On selected days of October, about 420 students from 7 schools of Athens have visited the exhibition, and many of these groups will undertake year long projects in their schools on relevant topics.
The seminars and the school visits have been coorganised with Directorate of Primary and Secondary Education of A’ Athens. Sincere thanks to ESD Officers Ms Maria Dimopoulou and Mr Manolis Hatziemmanouil. The exhibition has been kindly hosted at Serafio Arts, Sports & Innovation Centre, while all events were held under the auspices of the City of Athens!
A KA1 training of European Educators: From 6 to 12 October 2019, 16 teachers and educators from Malta and Cyprus participated in a course dedicated to ESD & Marine Litter, in the framework of an Erasmus supported KA1 week-long course . The participants had the opportunity to be acquainted with various educational tools, follow lectures, participate in hands-on workshops, do a series of field visits including beach clean-up and, at the end design their own projects to sensitize their target groups on the issue of marine litter. Within the course the educators also visited the exhibition, “studying” it from a communication perspective.
The course was evaluated through anonymous online questionnaire that revealed a very high level of satisfaction (4 on an 4 point scale), while the vast majority declared they would absolutely recommend the course to a colleague. Still, there is some room for amedments in its design: Many trainees asked for even more workshops and hands-on sessions (compared to the theoretic ones) and missed participation from even more countries for greater interaction.
marine litter course 2019 : participants’ testimonies
There was a balanced mixture of lectures, workshops, field work, and hands on activities. Thus making it more interesting, practical and easy to adopt in our sending institution.
I enjoyed outings near the sea more than enclosed in the same place, even though staff were very welcoming and organized with valued material.
The practical aspects in the course really helped the participants get into the idea of the sea, the living creatures and how to reduce marine litter. We should incorporate more such hands on approaches with the children and colleagues we work with.
I enjoyed the fact that the lectures/ field work etc. were hosted in different sites.
I give positive recomendation for other colleagues that may wish to participate in such courses, we have benefited from this training course and found it useful in our education profession.