Themes

Ocean Matters: Safeguarding Our Oceans

31 Mar 2022

U.S. Consulate General Chennai in partnership with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) initiated an evidence-based awareness & education program that train and mentor schools to collect, record and analyze environmental data related to climate change and marine pollution. The Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) and “Microplastics monitoring protocol in surface waters” developed by Deakin University in collaboration with Labter-Crea MN and Globe Italia will be used to generate and understand scientific data related to ocean health. The program also enhances capacity and skillsets in students, educators, and the community to spread awareness and proactively safeguard ocean health. In phase I, 100 schools in coastal cities of Mumbai, Mormugao and Mangalore were trained, in phase II additional 100 schools are being targeted from Chennai, Kochi and Puducherry. To register your school, click here

Key Activities:

Blog Competition:

Earlier on Earth Day, a Blog competition on the theme ‘oceans’ was announced, and it garnered more than 400 entries from school students aged 12- 18 years across the country and UAE. The blog entries were received for the ‘Debunking Myths with Facts’, ‘Local Heroes of Our Oceans’, and ‘Coastal Tales’ and the winner and runner-up for each category were announced on 8 June 2024 while commemorating World Oceans Day. The winning entries can be found here. Additionally, this also provided the registered applicants an opportunity to attend an online workshop on Environmental Blogging held on 10 May 2024 to help them understand and incorporate the nuances of blogging to safeguard oceanic health.

Teacher Training Workshops:

Hybrid workshops in all the project locations were organized to train teachers to use the GLOBE and MMPT Protocols.

Conducting Experiments

The trained teachers have set up core group of 10-15 students in their school who in turn are now trained by their teachers to conduct the experiments as per the GLOBE and MMPT protocol. The training covers right from collection of water sample to documentation and uploading the data.

Celebration of Environmental Days

The project annually celebrates World Water Day, World Environment Day and World Oceans Day. Programs are conducted to raise awareness and draw support to safeguard oceanic health. Additionally, awareness around national science day, world mangrove day, world turtle day and other days related to oceanic health are also celebrated.

Beach Clean-up Drives

Beach clean-ups were conducted in Mumbai and Mormugao wherein around 550 kgs of waste was collected and safely disposed of with the help of local authorities. Of the waste collected 60 percent was plastic. Several schools replicated these exercises on their own.

Shore Walks

Students and teachers were taken on a shore walk to explore and understand the biodiversity supported by beach ecosystems. The first-hand experience of seeing marine bio-diversity was an eye opener for many students and teachers. An understanding of anthropogenic activities impacting beach ecosystem and the marine biodiversity strengthen their resolve to safeguard the oceans.

BLUE Campaign

School led community campaigns were organized by project schools to sensitize the community to various issues related to oceanic health. Workshops were held with experts to provide more information on marine biodiversity, beach clean-ups were carried out, interactions with fishing and other coastal communities were also carried out.

School visits

Officials from the US Consulate General Chennai visited a few schools to understand how the project has spanned out in the schools and its integration into the school curriculum.

Launching Phase II

The success of the program led to its extension to involve another 100 schools from Chennai, Pondicherry and Kochi while simultaneously strengthening the work in Mumbai, Mangalore and Mormugao.

EPA Administrator’s visit

Project Ocean Matters was demonstrated to the visiting administrator of US Environment Protection Agency, Mr. Michael Regan on 27 July 2023. Students demonstrate the temperature and salinity experiments under the GLOBE protocol and interacted with the administrator and completed a short walk with him to understand the impact of climate change on oceans and beach ecosystems.

Ocean Matters @ COP 28

Project Ocean Matters was selected to be showcased at “Greening Education Pavilion: LEGACY –from the Land of Zayed” hosted by the UAE Ministry of Education in partnership with the Greening Education Partnership with its secretariat at UNESCO organized by UNESCO and Ministry of Education, UAE at COP-28 in UAE on 2 December, 2023. Project Ocean Matters went on to demonstrate how citizen Science can be an effective education response to climate change.

Project Outreach

The project has been showcased at several national and international platforms to highlight the role of citizen science programs in monitoring environmental health.

1.     Rivers of Spring
2.     NIMS session
3.     BODH

Felicitation

Schools in the phase I locations of Mumbai, Mangalore and Mormugao have been felicitating their team promoting ocean matters in their schools. Additionally, schools also received awards for their participation in the program.