Ger­many: Bio­mare - ex­per­i­ence and pro­tect mar­ine hab­it­ats

For many years, an in­creas­ing ali­en­a­tion between hu­mans and nature has been ob­served. Bio­lo­gists and nature con­ser­va­tion­ists have been com­plain­ing for a long time about the de­creas­ing in­terest in nature and the as­so­ci­ated de­creas­ing know­ledge of the liv­ing en­vir­on­ment. Nev­er­the­less, a grow­ing aware­ness of the need for en­vir­on­mental and cli­mate pro­tec­tion meas­ures has emerged, es­pe­cially among young people, as the Fri­days for Fu­ture move­ment im­press­ively demon­strates.

Tour­ism is very im­port­ant for Schleswig-Hol­stein, and the coasts of the North and Baltic Seas are pre­ferred des­tin­a­tions. "Ex­per­i­ence the beach" is one of the guests' primary wishes. But the ex­per­i­ence usu­ally ends above the wa­ter sur­face. Many people lack not only the know­ledge about the dif­fer­ent hab­it­ats in the sea, but also about the vari­ous threats to which this sens­it­ive sys­tem is ex­posed.

Act­ively ex­per­i­en­cing and pro­tect­ing mar­ine hab­it­ats - this takes up the suc­cess­ful learn­ing prin­ciple of un­der­stand­ing con­tent emo­tion­ally through dir­ect ex­per­i­ence and re­tain­ing it per­man­ently. Bio­mare is di­vided into two parts, a sum­mer and a winter pro­gram: act­ive ex­per­i­ence in sum­mer, know­ledge trans­fer with dry feet in the cooler sea­sons.

Do-it-your­self Box (Zero Waste Box, Green Box, Sus­tain­ab­il­ity Box)

The DIY box con­tains all the ne­ces­sary in­gredi­ents for the waste-free pro­duc­tion of vari­ous products, in­struc­tions and tar­get group-ori­ented in­form­a­tion on waste and plastic avoid­ance. The box can be ordered for fa­cil­it­ies throughout Schleswig-Hol­stein, and the pro­ject team mem­ber is also offered the op­por­tun­ity to ac­com­pany the teach­ing unit per­son­ally.

Baltic Sea Pro­gram

The pro­gram con­veys know­ledge and of­fers the op­por­tun­ity to act­ively ex­plore the world be­neath the sur­face. In­form­a­tion about the Baltic Sea as a liv­ing and eco­nomic area is also con­veyed in a play­ful way to par­ti­cipants of all ages. The fo­cus is on ex­per­i­en­cing and ex­plor­ing nature on the beach. In colder wa­ter tem­per­at­ures, waders are avail­able to help you search with land­ing nets and push nets.

Snorkel­ing

Every safe swim­mer can take a dir­ect look un­der the sur­face with the snorkel­ing equip­ment provided. Dur­ing snorkel­ing tours, a mar­ine bio­lo­gist provides back­ground in­form­a­tion about the Baltic Sea and its in­hab­it­ants. However, the fo­cus is on the dir­ect ex­per­i­ence of the un­der­wa­ter world with snorkel and fins. Above all hu­mans, who had so far little con­tact with the sea for so­cial reas­ons, are to par­ti­cip­ate in these tours. Pure girl tours are part of the pro­ject.

Ger­man-Ar­abic Baltic Sea in­form­a­tion book­let

Ac­cord­ing to the Im­mig­ra­tion Re­port of the State of Schleswig-Hol­stein, more than 4,400 asylum seekers came to Schleswig-Hol­stein in 2018 alone, a large num­ber of whom speak Ar­abic. The Baltic Sea Info Book­let provides in­form­a­tion in Ger­man and Ar­abic on the top­ics of the sea, the Baltic Sea and mar­ine waste. The book­let is avail­able to edu­ca­tional in­sti­tu­tions.

Already in 2018 a trans­port trailer with com­plete snorkel­ing equip­ment was pur­chased. Des­pite the re­stric­tions im­posed by the CoV­id19 pan­demic, nu­mer­ous courses and work­shops were held in 2020.

The re­quired ma­ter­i­als were de­veloped and pro­duced and are avail­able.