A team of Maltese participants, including two teachers, six secondary school pupils, Mr Johann Galdies (Research Support Officer within the Department of Geosciences, Faculty of Science), Prof. Mark C. Mifsud (Director of the Centre for Environmental Education and Research (CEER)) and Ms Marilyn Cassar Cordina, a government official from the Ministry of Education, travelled to Marseille, France between 10 to 12 May 2023 to participate in the Mediterranean Multiplier Event which was organised at the city hall of Marseille by the BlueSchoolsMed Project, funded within the framework of the ERASMUS+ programme.
All participants were able to participate in the discussions involving ocean literacy within schools and amongst school children and the pupils were also able to showcase their Blue Challenge project to other attendees of the event, which included participants from eight different countries.
The Maltese pupils, who attend Maria Regina Secondary School (Mosta), and who were accompanied by their teachers Ms Fiona Vella Ciangura and Ms Alana Fenech, have been working for the past year and a half on their Blue Challenge project called Kahooting Our Way to the Sea which deals with a set of quizzes set up to educate young people about sea-related issues and facts, namely: pollution, corals, sea mammals and sea maps.
The participants of this BlueSchoolsMed event were also taken to two site visits, to the Frioul Archipelago which is a Natura 2000 site managed by the Conservatoire du Littoral, and to the museum dedicated to the Grotte Cosquer which is a partially submerged cave which houses spectacular prehistoric art.
The BlueSchoolsMed project is financed by the ERASMUS+ programme and is being coordinated by ACTeon (France). The University of Malta is a project partner with Prof. Alan Deidun as the Principal Investigator, and seeing the active participation of Prof. Mark C. Mifsud and Dr Adam Gauci. Prof. Deidun and Dr Gauci are resident academics within the Oceanography Malta Research Group (Department of Geosciences).
