Line of action:

Status:

Execution date:

The LIFE INTEMARES project, coordinated by the Biodiversity Foundation, aims to carry out effective management of the marine areas of the Natura 2000 Network in Spain. One of the actions it contemplates is to develop an environmental awareness and education plan on the Natura 2000 Network.

The aim of this project is to complement this environmental awareness and education plan, disseminating the importance of the marine Natura 2000 Network in different educational centres. To this end, it will seek to increase the scope of visits to the centres (increasing the number of municipalities, the number of educational centres to be visited and the educational levels) and an awareness campaign called “Message in a bottle” has been promoted to raise awareness among the population and encourage participation in the conservation of the marine environment.

The main objective of the project has been to disseminate the importance of the marine Natura 2000 Network among secondary and baccalaureate students from different schools in the 24 provinces and autonomous cities of the Spanish coast, thus complementing the environmental awareness and education plan of the LIFE INTEMARES project.

The specific objectives were as follows:

• To train teachers and students from secondary and baccalaureate schools to improve knowledge about the marine environment and the Natura 2000 Network.
• Involve students from schools in particular, and society as a whole in general, in the conservation of the marine environment and the marine Natura 2000 Network.

• Design and development of a talk-workshop to disseminate the importance of the Natura 2000 Network and improve the knowledge about the marine environment and the Natura 2000 Network of Secondary and Baccalaureate students from 73 educational centers in the 24 Spanish provinces with coastline. As a support for the talk-workshop, different didactic materials have been developed to facilitate its understanding, such as PowerPoint presentations and roll-ups.
• Creation of didactic units on the marine environment and the Natura 2000 Network for development in the classrooms after the talk-workshop given, making 3 dossiers for students and 3 for teachers.
• Implementation of the online awareness campaign “Message to the Ocean”, at a national level, with the aim of highlighting the importance of the ocean and proposing actions that contribute to improving its state of conservation. Thus, the #MensajeAlOcéano campaign has consisted of 10 routes that have covered all Spanish provinces: route 1 (Miño), route 2 (Duero), route 3 (Tajo), route 4 (Guadiana), route 5 (Guadalquivir), route 6 (Segura), route 7 (Júcar), route 8 (Ebro), route 9 (Insular) and route 10 (Mediterranean-Cantabrian). Each of these routes has lasted 10 days during which a “virtual bottle” with the messages of the participants has been transported. To explain how the campaign works, the entity has developed a specific website that describes the objective of the campaign, how to participate and some examples of messages and actions to inspire those interested. In total, 123 people and entities have participated.
• Dissemination and communication of the project through social networks and the entity’s website. These publications have presented the project, the teaching materials generated for students and teachers and the results obtained throughout the duration of the project, as well as other content related to the Natura 2000 Network.

The EDUCAMARES project has focused on improving society’s knowledge of the ocean, the biodiversity it hosts and the marine Natura 2000 Network. To this end, three blocks of differentiated activities were proposed. Firstly, the holding of face-to-face talks-workshops in Secondary and Baccalaureate education centres, visiting 73 educational centres throughout the project, distributed among all the Spanish provinces and autonomous cities with the coast. In them, 259 talks-workshops were given, reaching a total of 7,148 students.

Secondly, 6 educational dossiers were carried out on the theme of the project, adapted to 3 educational levels (1st-2nd of ESO, 3rd-4th of ESO and Baccalaureate), in order to facilitate the work on the marine theme in class. These dossiers were hosted in a specific web section, from where they can be downloaded. These dossiers were disseminated by e-mail to a total of 2,778 educational centres and to 26 education authorities in different Spanish provinces and autonomous cities.

In addition, a nationwide informative and awareness-raising campaign called “Message to the Ocean” was developed. This campaign was aimed at all citizens (individuals, families, companies, entities, administrations, etc.) and tried to raise awareness in society about the importance of the ocean and promote attitudes that would help improve its environmental status. In total, 123 people, entities and companies participated in the campaign, sharing more than 150 messages within the campaign.

Finally, it should be noted that the social networks and the entity’s own website have served to disseminate the different activities of the project and their results. In addition to this dissemination, the results obtained have been reported to 26 competent Administrations in educational terms identified in the cities and autonomous provinces with coastlines.