Young Ecologists on a Mission: Saving Our Seas

The reasons for applying to this project increased gradually, largely as a result of participating to workshops and actuvities with the same topic- ecology. I used these activities as part of my personal and teaching experience, and I came to realize that, although some of the projects were local, they haven't been transformed into ERASMUS+ projects. The main reason for applying for this project was to contribute to the human's trying and struggle to save planet Earth. Moreover, the students from the "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" National Military College Constanta gladly participated to some previous ecological activities but they didn't have the opportunity to be involved into an Erasmus+ project. Hence, this project addressed the students' need to be part of an international project, our institution's needs to gain Erasmus experience, our turistic city's needs to keep the Black Sea as clean as possible for turists, locals and the maritime commerce, our country's needs to have a clean sea, so we can all benefit of fresh seafood and increased local budget., our planet's needs to be kept as healthy as possible, and even the needs of future generations who will have a better life due to the fact that oceans and seas are cleaner.

By implementing this project, our institution aimed at contributing to the saving of the seas and oceans of our planet. Our ambition was to raise people's awareness about the dangers of sea pollution, and we considered the best starting point to be the children we, as teachers, educate in schools. We considered that the best way to do that was to write and Erasmus application, thus giving students from all four partner institutions the chance to learn important things for our future.

There were four main activities implemented in our project: 1. S.O.S.- Save Our Seas, which was held in Constanta, Romania, hosted by our institution, was mainly focused on investigating the pollution degree on coastal areas and improving sea life by rasing people's awareness about how important it is to keep the beach clean. The participants adopted a civic attitude and learned to protect the beach and came up with sollutions to recycling plastic and decrease the pollution degree on beaches and in the sea. 2. Keep the waters blue! was hosted my the Francesco Morosini Military Highschool in Venice, Italy, and its main objective was to perceive and understand the diversity of costal areas and their pollution degree. 3. Eco-Holidays was held in Lloret de Mar, Spain. The main objective was the development of practical skills aimed at investigating the coastal areas, the love nature, a healthy lifestyle and practicing eco-tourism. 4. Empowered young ecologists save the sea- was held in Manavgat, Turkiye, and the objectives were acquisition of information on the coastal landscape in Turkiye investigating the coastal landscape from an economic and ecological perspective; development of artistic and practical skills to protect the beach.

The concrete results of our project are children's changed behaviour towards the sea and the pollution,, the increased interest in protecting the sea and the beaches seen in the number of followers this project had on Facebook and Instagram. Through this project, they learned to become civic and responsible citizens of our society. Other results are: - changes in the behaviour of the local people in the 4 cities that were included in the project. C - exposing, in English, the results of the scientific research carried out on the beach in different local areas, in each partner school, during meetings with local authorities and other students and teaches in school who didn't participate directly to the project. - understanding the ecological diversity in coastal zones and seas and raising awareness of its importance, through and during mobilities.