This will probably be one of the final posts for 2009 so I thought I’d present you a summary of everything we did this season related to Clean Up The Coastline –project.
6.7-18.7 Iceland – On The Move! part 1
A pilot project for Worldwide Friends. A small group of volunteers was sent to drive along the coastline of Iceland to discover and mark to their map all the trash objects that were too heavy to be removed by hand. These trash objects could be for example ship wrecks or fishing nets buried in the sand. The group covered the coastline from west of the village Vik proceeding to the East, rising to the North and getting all the way to Akureyri.
03.8-17.8 Research project: Clean up the Coastline in the Western Fjords
A volunteer group went to the Western Fjords for two weeks to clean up the beaches and to execute beach pollution surveys. The group was using the official European research methodology provided by OSPAR. The group cleaned six parts of different coastlines on the fjords and conducted several beach litter surveys on every coastline.
19.8. – 2.9. Iceland – On The Move! part 2
Second part of the adventure along the coastline of Iceland, this time discovering the area from south of Reykjavik after Vik, proceeding to the North of Reykjavik covering almost the whole Western Fjords. The results of both On The Move –camps we marked to a Google Map and are found here.
24.8.-4.9. Environmental Education in Reykjavik
A large group of 17 volunteers planned a one hour school visit. The aim was to teach children about environmental issues and recycling. The group used some information from the previous year to plan, but basically the whole session was planned from scratch.
The session had a Powerpoint –presentation about a Icelandic child character Jón and “Trashi”, a cartoon character of a talking trash bin. After this the group had a music performance of Queen’s song “We will rock you” played with trash instruments, transformed into “We will recycle” to fit the theme better. After the music the group split into classrooms and made an illustration about the nature of Iceland and garbage using a large map on the floor. Finally the group played a recycling game with the children. After careful planning the group visited three schools to teach their session to 12 classrooms.
18.-25.9. Environmental Exhibition in Reykjavik
The work camp planned the environmental “Garbage Art Exhibition” at the BSI station of Reykjavik, which included photography from the summer 2009 work camps, info sheets about Worldwide Friends and garbage art build by kids at elementary schools from Reykjavik. Moreover, the group did a school visit and teached the kids using the Powerpoint –show from the previous work camp and build garbage art work with the children for the exhibition.
27.10.-10.11. Art and Environment
A group was working for local green areas of Reykjavik city and did also a school visit. The group worked to update the Powerpoint –presentation to a new version, which included this time information about energy saving and air pollution and also a funny acting part. Therefore the visit was this time more informative and entertaining.
This concludes the season 2009 for Clean Up The Coastline. We are already planning the activities for next year, some of them are going to be similar as the ones, so stay tuned and check out our page in the future as well!
Have a nice rest of the year 2009!
~ Tomi Tuovinen, Clean Up The Coastline –coordinator 2009
