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CARIBBEAN - The Bahamas Activities

Bahamian Schools enter UNESCO Community Sandwatch Competition

Students from Hope Town Primary School, Abaco, Bahamas, won second prize for their entry to the UNESCO Community Sandwatch Competition. In their project, entitled "Share our care, be aware" the students had to re-organise their project after their target beach at Hope Town was devastated by three hurricanes in September 2004. They measured related ecosystems such as mangroves and coastal forest and found these recovered faster than their beach site. They then focused their efforts on planting sea oats on recently restored sand dunes and preparing a brochure to guide visitors on ways to conserve the coral reef.

'Planting sea oats is not easy - we had sore backs throughout. We will now measure the growth of our special patch of sea oats. We made signs to put out so people do not walk on our babies.'

Students from the Yellow Elder Primary School in Nassau, New Providence, submitted a project on "Operation Love your Beach' to the 2005 UNESCO Community Sandwatch Competition. They selected South Beach, a beach in need of attention, as their project beach. They determined the main types of beach users and found there were two main problems: (1) beach users did not give much thought to keeping the beach clean and (2) there were no garbage bins. They addressed the first issue with a poster competition. Then they painted environmental messages on 55-gal oil drums, which they placed on the beach to serve as garbage cans. However, unfortunately the garbage bins were stolen. With the help of a local TV station, they publicsed their problem, and after much effort, one of the island's private garbage collection companies agreed to supply an industrial sized garbage bin for the beach.

'From this project we learnt children can make a difference. Without money, things move slowly, but if we have patience and never give up, we can have success. And that's what we want for our beach'

 

To get involved, contact :

 
 

Ms. Beverly Taylor
Assistant Director of Education, Science and Technology Section,
Ministry of Education,
Thompson's Boulevard , P.O. Box N-3913/4,
Nassau, Bahamas
T: 1 242 322 8140, 1 242 356 5109
F: 1 242 322 8491, 1 242 328 7329
bjtt@hotmail.com

 

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