Updated on March 13, 2024
Implementation of educational modules in school – Updates for Modules 1-3
It is time for new updates about our project EcoPatrols. We are now more or less at the end of the first half of the project, and things are going pretty good. As it was planned, we finished the preparation phase in 2023, with the national workshop in which we tested 3 of the thematic modules we had prepared. As for this year 2024, it will be dedicated to the testing of the 8 modules with a test-group in each of the participating countries, in order to verify the feasibility and the relevance of the activities.
For this phase, each partner organization had to invite a group of around 20 youngsters (14-18 years old) to follow the 8 months program, going through all the modules to test them one by one. Here, at the Marine Park of Punta Campanella, we decided to work with the Liceo Linguistico Salvemini of Sorrento, with a class of fourth grade, which had to do their PCTO.
The first module, titled « Eco-Literacy », has been tested on the 26th of January with our group. We must say that the students have welcomed us warmly and have shown interest for the activities right from the start.
During this day, we went through 5 activities that allowed us to introduce the whole manual. Indeed, the students starting learning about ecology, but also about a lot of other words and concepts connected to it and to environmental themes. Through a couple of concrete exercises, they managed to hone their collaborative skills as well as their analytic skills, and they learned what is the good attitude to adopt when one wants to study environmental problems ! In other words, at the end of the day, they were all more eco-literates. And even though doing all the activities has been very tiring (for the students as well as for our facilitators), we all finished this first day of testing with a smile on our face and with the satisfaction of the accomplished work.
After the first module, we took a couple of weeks to prepare the next encounter and the presentation of the second chapter of our environmental educative adventure. It is on the 17th of February that we met, once again, the students in order to talk about biodiversity and ecosystems. Those concepts, that are often used those last years when we talk about the environmental crisis, are not always understood fully. 
The objectives of this second module was to teach to the students how the organisms are organized in the natural world, and how everyone of them is connected to the others through different kinds of relationship. The students have been particularly pro-active for this module, and went through the activities with a lot of energy. They went from questioning themself to building an ecosystem, while studying the relation between different kind of animals animals and between animals and their environment, as well as the influence of human being on natural ecosystem. At the end of the module, we took the time to talk a little bit about the services that the ecosystems are providing to humans, and about the impact that the humans have on the ecosystems. This last topic was a good way for us to close the day, as it allowed us to smoothly introduce the module 3.
Indeed, a couple days later, on February 21st, we went through the third module dedicated to « Climate change and human impacts ». 
Thus, after seeing, in module 2, how animals and plants were interacting with each other and their environment in the natural world, we studied how those organisms were heavily impacted by human activities. Through the activities of the third module, we went through the main threats impacting the ecosystems, their causes and consequences. The students have had the opportunity to get in the shoes of the impacted organisms, but also to think about solutions that they could implement on a local level to mitigate the impacts we have on nature !
Overall, we can say that our program is going smoothly. Together with the students, we are working hard to test the modules and to evaluate them in order to improve them afterward. In the meanwhile, we are sharing with our public a lot of important environmental that allows them to raise their awareness about environmental issues. We are convinced that sharing knowledge is the best way to prepare them to be responsible and sustainable citizens in the future !
