Marine Education Center: Community Outreach
The Marine Education Center at The Sands has been working to expand its community outreach programmes. To date, a total of 166 students and 27 teachers from local schools visited the center to learn all about Kenya’s incredible marine life and the importance of conservation.
Students have the opportunity to take part in a variety of activities with the center’s resident marine biologist and education manager. Students have enjoyed a turtle fact finding mission and conducted a beach clean survey to collect data on the rubbish they removed from the beach. The data is then collated and used for a school project.
A fun degradation game requires students to consider how long they think it takes different objects, such as bottle tops, fishnets, cardboard, tyres and cloth, to degrade. A school visit is rounded off with a special documentary screening of the movie ‘Oceans’, which is a big hit with students who often do not know how many animals are in the ocean and who have never seen a fish swim.
Many of the students who walk through the marine center’s doors are visiting the beach for the first time.
The local Conservation Education Society and the Marine Education Centre have funded the trips to give this unique opportunity to local school students who would otherwise miss out on a fantastic, far-reaching educational experience.
