Posted on August 4, 2017
MARE per Esplorare – 3rd session
After the two first sessions of Mare per Esplorare, the Marelini (bambini di Mare Per Esplorare) now know of three nets : creels, trammel, longline.
This Tuesday 1st August, with the hot weather, Mare per esplore was slow to start. The children arrived one by one. While waiting for them, we prepared Largo Vescovado for a especially large game “fish me”. The pictures of different fishes were hidden everywhere. Each child had to find 4 pictures of the same species. After finding them, they had to answer with which type of net this fish could be caught.
When we had enough children(8 – 10), we could to begin the orientation game. After initiating the game, they rushed to find and recover the images on the trees, the benches, in the nets and on the walls at differents heights.
At the end, almost all of them knew with what net I can catch their species. Real progress, and also very nice to see!
The second game was a role-playing game wtih 3 roles : fisherman, fish and jellyfish. Fisherman beats fish; Fish beats jellyfish; Jellyfish beats fisherman. Divided in two groups, each group got to decide on one role in secret. We counted to three and they immitated the role they had choosen together. When one group won against other, they had to run and catch the children in the other group. The one caught joins the team which caught them, and so on. They didn’t want to stop so we continued for “tre ultima” (the three last), and we could hear after that “l’ultima, l’ultima” and continued to play more. It was very nice to see them so enthousiastic about the game.
The third game was with different approach. We played the “fisher game” with different instructions. The first round is played with only one fisherman, with the other children playing as fish. The second round was played with 5 fishermen so with less fish (10). The third time with 10 fishermen, and with only 5 fish! This was all done in ordrer to show the children what is happening in the sea balance-wise, and to show the difference between what the industry looked like 50 years ago and today: Initially, less fishermen and more fish, with it being easy to fish the quantity we aimed for. Now with more fishermen and less fish, not everybody can catch the one fish…. We based this game on reality, so that they could really get to understand what is happening in the world actually today. The kids are turning out to be really smart !
Finally, we finished the day with a manual activity : to create a fish by tracing our hands, and to draw, color and cut it out. At the end of the session, everybody left with a prize and with a smile.
Thank you for your help Nuria (our mentor and volunteer in 2016) and Alvaro (volunteer in 2014).
Méli-Shèryam and Anis
Updated on August 2, 2017
“Un MARE per Esplorare 2017” has been started!
Updated on November 20, 2020
Algae and Posidonia lesson!
Some time ago we told you about our First Approach to Algae and Aquatic Plants. Project M.A.R.E. volunteers and some students from Sant’Anna Institute of Sorrento learnt about these organisms trough theoretical lessons, snorkeling and laboratory experience. Now, are the EVS volunteers which help with these lessons!
Because we love new experiences, this time we decided to give the lesson to the American students at Ieranto Bay. FAI provided us the space for the theoretical lesson and, of course, carrying all the material was a nice adventure!
The day started with the walk until Ieranto. It was a really hot day, but the students could enjoy the view and improve their knowledge also about the area. Already in Ieranto, Domenico started with the Posidonia oceanica lesson. The students were interested and curious about to see this plant on its natural environment. So, we decided to go snorkeling. The sea was a bit rough with some waves and not good visibility, however everybody was happy and enjoying a lot the experience!
Because we want to provide a nice day to the American students, we settled to have a break for lunch with time for talking and resting.
The afternoon started with the laboratory experience. During the snorkeling, the students had the chance to collect some samples of Posidonia oceanica and Algae, so in this task they should analyze Posidonia and identify Algae species. Some people from FAI and Fondalicampania were with us enjoying the learning and everybody could learn a lot and had fun at the same time. The day finished with the Algae theoretical lesson provided by Olga.
The general feeling was that we could provide a nice day to the students, full of marine biology knowledge and good mood!
Posted on July 20, 2017
The final party of Latvian cultural month
On Monday evening, taking chance to gather all the volunteers at home before half of our team leaves to go to the midterm-training, me and Valentina – a Latvian volunteer from M.A.R.E. edition 2014, who comes back every summer to give a helping hand in monitoring of the Ieranto bay and to enjoy this magical place once again, organised a final party of Latvian cultural month. Also Stéphanie, a super cute person and a veteran of this project, arrived a few days ago to spend two weeks with us.
The idea was to involve everybody in the cooking process and to show, how to cook some of typical Latvian dishes. For this time we decided to serve buckwheat with to types of fresh salad (leaf salad + cucumbers + greens + linseed oil and cucumbers + tomatoes + unsweetened yogurt instead of the sour cream), a carrot and green peas stew and baked apples for the dessert. To create a further mood a Latvian music was played in the background. We started with cutting the vegetables (including a master class of carrot cutting art) to prepare everything for the salad and one of the main dishes.
We had also another guest – a French guy, who spent time with project M.A.R.E. volunteers three years ago and is also a friend of Méli. Yes, the world is small!
Meanwhile the buckwheat and the stew had been cooking, we prepared the apples and filled them with raisins and cinnamon.
The final part of the party took place on our terrace soon after the sunset. We could enjoy the meal with a beautiful view to the sea and later the clear sky full of stars. So lucky to have this place!!!
Updated on July 17, 2017
Patrolling the ‘Yellow’ Zone: “Campo Boe”
Every year, from the 15th of June to 30th of September, the park operates and maintains 27 yellow buoys in a yellow zone (meaning you cannot anchor there) near Nerano. The buoys themselves were installed to protect the posedonia within the area, since anchors can rip up large swaths of it in one go. There are many boats that come and go, with the weekends being the most hectic. The activity is headed by Luca and Nicola, the two boat captains of the Area Marina Protetta.
From around the 20th of June, Anis and Henrik have been helping the responsible persons with their jobs, with more languages and manpower available to ensure as good a job as possible is carried out. It is hot work under the sun, but luckily the company is excellent. The other main aim of us volunteers involved with the management of the buoys is to educate in the spirit of project M.A.R.E. regarding posedonia: know where you can find it; why it is important, and ask people to respect it. The sight of a posedonia tangled anchor is not a nice one:
We also spend time cleaning the sea between handling boats, with plenty of garbage being picked up during the day. Captain Luca should earn the title “Hawk-eyes” due to his impressive ability to spot anything, trash or useful, within the sea from miles away… especially hats…
Several hundreds of boats have been handled, which hopefully will help spread the message of the good work the park is doing and what people can do to avoid destroying posedonia. Anis and Henrik also get to improve their Italian, with downtime being spent discussing Italian culture and problems… and football (Squadra di Napoli). Not to mention the clients of the buoys themselves… all in good humour!
Hard work with great results!
