A workgroup meeting for the Sea4all project was completed on the 21st of November at the Foundation for Research and Technology, Crete with the participation of Archipelagos Institute of Marine Conservation. Sea4all project aims to help building a stronger environmental consciousness to students in school age and to the school teachers and educators through the creation of innovative resources and practices for training in marine pollution with special emphasis on oil spills and floating plastic debris, through the effective use of ICT technologies in education.

Over the past two years a learning strategy has been developed in collaboration with the teachers equipping them with innovative approaches and ICT methods as a driver to transfer and spread the knowledge to schools.

At Archipelagos Institute of Marine Conservation, we have since 2009 joined our forces with leading universities and research institutes from various parts of the EU with the aim to determine and also quantify the levels of plastic pollution in the NE Mediterranean. Our research on marine litter, but also on the risk analysis of shipping accidents contributed significantly to the development of the educational material that was presented during the workgroup meeting.

The 7 partners who contributed to the development of this educational material: the Foundation for Research and Technology of Crete, the Regional Directorate of Primary and Secondary Education of Crete, the Archipelagos Institute for Marine Conservation, the University of Cardiff, the University of Cyprus, the Ministry of Education and Culture of Cyprus and the Inspectorate Scholar Judetean in Romania, in the framework of the Erasmus+ program, presented the final educational tools which include a video game (sea4allseriousgame), an e-learning platform, a training curriculum and the Sea4all Pedagogical Handbook entitled: “10 Pedagogical Proposals to Navigate the Waters of Sea4all».

Maybe our generation cannot ensure a better world for the generations to come. What we can definitely do, though, is transform our aggregated knowledge on the issues of plastic pollution into actions and use this knowledge to inspire our youth. They will be the ones to address the multiple environmental problems that our generation are causing; therefore, the least we can do is pass down knowledge and tools with the hope that they will be able to defend wildlife and global ecosystems in a much more efficient manner than we do. The educational material produced in the framework of the Sea4all project aims to contribute towards this purpose. All the material will soon be available at www.sea4all-project.eu.