Throughout the project, we have had a desire to make the students aware of their co-responsibility in reducing plastic pollution in the oceans and the consequences that the increased plastic pollution entails. Through the project, we have made comparisons and studies in Svendborg Sund and the Mediterranean respectively, and the clear goal has been to strengthen the students' awareness in relation to how their local actions help to support global challenges. In addition, our focus has been to create fertile ground for the students' understanding of being citizens of Europe, as the project was created in collaboration with the Ruben Dario School in Barcelona. We fully believe that we have lived up to our objective. The visit to the Spanish school in particular helped give the Danish students an understanding of their role and co-responsibility as citizens in the European society. At the same time, the project has created knowledge among our students in relation to the increased amount of plastic pollution in Svendborg Sund and in the Mediterranean respectively. Knowledge that the students will need when they have to do the final science exam in June 2023.
At Rantzausminde School in Svendborg, we are constantly finding ways to develop our teaching methods to improve the outcome for the students. We wish to make the teaching more realistic for our students, by making it more relevant and present. This project "Living by the Sea" gives the school's science teachers a great opportunity to achieve the desire for relevance and real-life teaching. Our school is located close to the sea, and we often use the outdoor space as a teaching room in regards to the use of realistic and practical investigations in connection with the theoretical work. For the primary school's science exam at Rantzausminde School in June 2023, one of the co-curricular focus areas is "Living by the Sea". The focus area is based on plastic pollution - primarily in the oceans. The students are evaluated on their ability to analyze the consequences of the increasing plastic pollution, and the results they have obtained through investigations in this project form the basis of their test. Furthermore, as we have had a goal to strengthen our students' European citizenship and the common responsibility we have for our environment, we have quite consciously chosen very different waters Svendborg Sund and the Mediterranean