Big Blue Conservation, the Eco arm of Big Blue Diving on Koh Tao, were recently honored with the job of teaching a Marine Conservation curriculum to the pupils at the International School of Samui. The team from Big Blue Conservation comprises of two Marine Biologists Jade Getliff & Ciara Hunt who put together an age appropriate curriculum for every year throughout the school starting from Year 1, ending 2 weeks later with Year 13.
The curriculum, as you are about to read, covered all areas of the marine world from identifying fish and coral and the purposes they serve and the impacts imposed upon their ecosystems from human activity, global warming, pollution and other concerns that impact our lives and our futures and what we can do about it.
So with 3 sets of personal dive equipment, (as Jim Donaldson the owner of Big Blue Diving and a parent at the school, wanted to tag along as well), 6 sets of scuba equipment, a few baby scuba tanks and a whole bunch of spare masks fins and snorkels & 20 kilos of weights, a suitcase of freebies and paperwork the Big Blue Conservation Team arrived at ISS to teach our first day of our Marine Conservation Program to the ever so wonderfully spritely Year 1.
YEAR 1
Slightly nervous and a little bit uncertain as to quite how well we would be received by a group of 5&6 year olds we
stepped into the classroom to be greeted by the very welcoming Ms. Ball and a group of kids who seemed to be as excited in the fact I had no hair as they were in the fact that there were 3 strange grown-ups in the classroom with them today.
Our intent for our morning session with Year 1 was to ignite a few sparks of interest with some interesting video of footage of fish local to Thailand and recognize the variety of different species of marine creatures that live in the Ocean as well as those that don’t and thereby understand what environments animals need to survive. We played marine life bingo and drew some pictures of our favorite underwater animals and after a morning of supreme hyperactivity the 3 of us had completed our first year group of the program.
We were so happy to be welcomed so warmly by the kids this morning who were the sweetest and probably a little more advanced than we had expected them to be. It was great to see their interest and harness all their energy and we really encouraged to see how involved the kids wanted to be. It was great morning. thank you so much guys and especially to Ms Ball and her team for their very helpful assistance.
YEAR 2
With a teacher like Mr. Mitcham in charge we recognized an immediate difference in that one year age group gap. For these 6 &7 years olds we stepped our game up a little and felt we could introduce the relevance of bracketing mammals from reptiles and fish and introducing crustaceans & cephalopods to the mix by recognizing the variety of body shapes of sea life and understanding how adaptations are linked to habitat. With photos, videos and pictures to inspire them the kids knuckled down to creating a picture differentiating a happy marine environment to a sad one.
After a day of uncertainty, hyperactivity and a yearning to relive our youth again the 3 of us from Big Blue Diving stepped back took a breather looked at each other & thought OMG- what have we let ourselves in for. Beautiful kids but if you aren’t used to being in a room of 20 or so 5-7 year olds it’s quite exhausting, though super encouraging with how involved each kid was with what they were being shown and asked to do. Hands were going up left right and center, answers were being thought about and we were super impressed with how good their knowledge of the underwater world is already at such a young age.
So a great day today. We’ve broken the ice, we’ve been well received and to all the kids we met today thank you for your support & involvement & can’t wait to see you again next time hopefully on Koh Tao and when you’re 8 years old come and learn your scuba bubblemakers with us in the sea. An experience you will never forget and one in which so few kids at this age get the opportunity to do so. Awesome job today everyone and a big thank you.
YEAR 3
Weather wise we were actually already conscious today might be a bit of a blowout. The forecast wasn’t great and we had a plan to be outside most of the day so with trepidation, our Marine Biologists headed in to Day 2 of our ISS/ Big Blue Diving Marine Conservation Program to be greeted with the very lovely Teacher Katie and her class of incredibly well behaved 7 & 8 year old’s.
The plan for the morning was to bring about an awareness on how to recognize where plastic comes from and how it can affect marine life, and then create a poster to show the different ways people can get involved in helping to clean up our oceans. We wanted the kids to think about what can and can’t be recycled or reused. And what sea creatures could be affected by plastics? The class teamed up in their groups and chose themselves a sea creature and made a poster to show how plastic affects that animal and how people can help reduce the plastic in the ocean.
After morning break we checked the weather and went for it! An outing to the beach- Bangrak Beach, Seatran pier. Probably the filthiest local beach to the school on the island. In our convoy of 4 mini-buses off we went to clean up the beach. After slipping on a pair of gloves and designating each bus group with their teacher off we trotted only 100 meters down the beach collecting as much rubbish as we could find. Then we went through our bags of rubbish & separated things like plastic bottle from polystyrene, and aluminum cans from discarded clothing, and miscellaneous bits of plastic from stringlets of drift nets. The haul was astounding with the whole of Year 3 collecting almost 50 kilos of trash altogether.
Our afternoon was to be in the pool. So far weather-wise we’d been lucky but the clouds were getting darker and we were definitely in for a spot of rain at some point but like true eco warriors our Year 3’s gathered with us at the pool with their fins and masks & snorkels ready to be taught how to equalize, how to duck dive and how to clear a snorkel. We didn’t get too far I’m afraid before an electrical storm passed over Samui and we were sensibly cleared from any further swimming pool activity. Disappointing for everyone but still quite fun and exciting and a good lesson on how to deal with a group of 20 kids beside a pool all at the same time in an electrical storm… as in… avoid it! Big thanks to Mr. Withers for all his poolside help today.
So another great day despite the weather- the kids were awesome, super involved, excited, did what they were asked and I know they were shocked and surprised at some of the information they learnt today but hopefully encouraged by solutions we can activate in our everyday lives that will collectively benefit the healthy future of our oceans. Shame the didn’t hold out just an hour or so longer for us but there’s always Koh Tao and the opportunity there to scuba dive once you are 8 years old as a Bubblemaker or as a 10 year old on the Junior Open Water Course. Meanwhile a big thanks to Miss Katie and your team for all your help in making what could have been a very difficult day a pleasure.
YEAR 4
In our minds I think today was going to be the real tester! Can you introduce food, high in sugar into a classroom of 8 & 9 year old’s, have them continue to focus on what they are being taught and then take them scuba diving in the pool? When the idea was first conceived it wasn’t even considered but having spent 2 days now with around 60 kids and having encountered the higher energy levels than perhaps we had anticipated maybe we should have thought this one through a little better, but thankfully we had Mrs. Kria to help us out.
Our plan for today’s lesson was to understand what coral is and how important it is for marine life and introduce words like polyp, calcium, tentacles, habitat, plankton, & zooxanthellae into an 8 year old’s vocab as well as associating words like mouth, skeleton, oxygen and carbon with a coral polyp.
Jade came up with a great idea for every person in the class to create their own coral polyp with the use of bananas, cookies, sherbert & pocki sticks and of course having built their coral marvel to then devour it as quickly and cleanly as possible, like fish!
We had a great morning with the 8 & 9 year old’s and an exciting afternoon to look forward to as Jade & Ciara got themselves ready by the pool to take 16 kids for their very first experience breathing underwater. We teemed our Year 4 divers into buddy teams of two and showed them how to equalize, how to clear a mask, how to clear a snorkel & regulator and how to swim underwater. And like fish to water our Year 4’s showed us what we already know as professional scuba divers… there’s nothing better than teaching people how to dive and introducing them to a whole new world.
Well done Year 4, our brand new bubble-makers, can’t wait to see you all on Koh Tao for the real thing in the sea when you come over for your Bubblemaker course with us, and thank you so much Mrs Kria and your team for all your help.
YEAR 5
We were introduced to the ever so bubbly Teacher Minnie on Thursday for Day 4 of our ISS/ Big Blue Diving Marine Conservation Program. We were told that today’s class was smaller than we had had so far so we were very pleased to see how many of these 9 &10 year old’s had signed up to come diving with us again in the afternoon.
Our aim today was to identify the five main oceans and the different ecosystems within them. We wanted to look at how currents form. We wanted to discuss the different varieties of animals that depend on certain conditions for their environment and how they may need to travel in order to find the necessities they have in life like food, temperature change, breeding, and how mankind might impact their survival.
We went online and started tracking a few whales, sharks and turtles that travel the open oceans and ride the currents and in our groups the kids prevented their findings to the class. We talked about how currents form and looked at the result of adding warm water to cold water and how the increased energy of the warm water speeds up its movement over the cold water creating its own current. We put this into practice in the classroom by adding food dye to our different water temperature and then pouring them into a tray and watching the result as the warmer red water revolved around the slower colder green water.
With red and green stained hands our Marine Biologists/ Scuba Instructors set up for another afternoon of scuba diving in the pool. Pleasantly surprised to see how many kids have already scuba dived before and how excited they were to be able to do it again at their school pool and with their friends. We let those who have dived before jump in with their buddy and team up with either Jade or Ciara while Jim entertained those in line next with an extremely witty briefing on the skills these budding divers would need to know, comprising of being able to clear the air space in their ears and sinuses by equalizing as well as the air spaces in the equipment like their snorkel, mask & regulator by exhaling through their nose or mouth upon direction.
Like ducks to a pond our scuba divers in Year 5 cruised through the afternoon thanks to the great communication of Teacher Minnie & her team. Well done Year 5. I loved how enthusiastic you all were and can’t wait to show you all the real thing when you come to visit us on Koh Tao for your 3 day Junior Open Water Course! Don’t forget to bring the family and mention that the whole family gets a 10% discount if you choose to dive with Big Blue Diving. See you soon Year 5!
YEAR 6
For me today was always going to be the highlight of the program, take your daddy to school day. I was way more excited than Lulu was. To sit in her classroom, to watch her interaction with her classmates and to put names to the faces of her peers. So I was a little caught off when I realized how nervous I suddenly was as I stepped into her classroom and introduced myself and Jade & Ciara to the class. This was the biggest group we had had so far in our ISS/ Big Blue Diving Marine Conservation Program and I suddenly realized how much older my little girl is than I have her in my mind.
But battling through my emotions and with Mr. Hawkes to hold me for emotional support our conservation team set off on our task for the morning which was to look at the struggles and threats our marine life are faced with every day which occur as a result of human activity and how we can react to stop, oppose or reduce these problems now and in the future. Together we identified the main threats to marine life being overfishing and bycatch, plastics and pollution, global warming and climate change and the impact these have on particular eco systems.
To demonstrate further we attempted an outside exercise in the playground whereby a habitat comprising of a kelp forest, sea urchins, otters, seals and sharks is affected if one of those species is removed from that particular eco system. After a very sweaty 20 minutes or so of running around in the mid-morning sun I was relieved to come back to the cool embrace of the air conditioned Year 6 classroom. We spent the rest of the morning in groups designing an Info poster based on a main threat to the eco systems that the class had identified earlier and that each group felt most passionate about, and then presented it to the class. We very impressed with how involved everyone became as they researched statistics online, created eye catching visuals and impactful facts to grab ones attention.
The Year 6 gang were great this morning. But how were they going to fare in the pool as we took a lot of them for their very first experience breathing underwater? Yep- no worries! Mermaids & Aquamen! Like clockwork we were able to give everyone in the class an experience scuba diving up and down the pool and although it wasn’t maybe as much time as we would like everyone to have had, due to the demand to try diving, I think it went down a storm. The kids were all naturals and seemed to be super happy to have been given the opportunity.
I do so hope to see you all in Koh Tao Year 6 and would love to take you for your 3 day Junior Open Water license and show you some real diving in the sea with fish, rays, turtles and hundreds of different types of marine life that surround these islands here in Thailand. Heck why not bring the family! Get Mum & Dad to pay & tell them you can get them a Big Blue Conservation
Thank you very much Year 6 and Teacher Mark and Kruu Bee for all your help. It was the perfect way to end an awesome experience here at ISS. Next week we move on to the secondary school and are very much looking forward to really getting into the science and potential career opportunities there are to be had as we learn to protect our oceans.
Thank you to Stephen at ISS and all the warmth and help we have been offered by all your staff this week at the primary school.
See you on Monday Year 7. Don’t forget your snorkel, mask & fins!
