During August and September this year, Maja Karlović and Marko Mlinar from the Oceanographic Department in cooperation with the Faculty of Science and Mathematics in Split and the Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries, held STEM workshops for children.
Activities of the "Oceanographer on the Island" include workshops for children, board games on the theme of the sea, and popular scientific lectures (Adriatic in a café).
The workshops are interactive and intended for children of elementary school age, who actively participate and perform experiments. Through research and play, we familiarized the children with oceanography and processes in the sea. For a slightly older audience, i.e. for all interested islanders and visitors, we organized a scientific café in the evening hours in a pleasant atmosphere, with the aim of getting closer to the audience and providing a scientific-popular view of physical phenomena in the sea, especially those which the inhabitants of islands meet every day. The topics were varied but always current (šćige, acid sea – a silent killer, climate change, plastic in the sea...), and what makes us particularly happy is a large number of interested islanders who participate in the conversation after lectures, which means that the importance of such events is recognized.
This year's topics were: Guardians of the sea, Plastics in the sea, Physics and life in the sea.
The activities were held on three islands: at Grohote Primary School on the island of Šolta, at Lukoran Primary School on the island of Ugljan, and at Vladimir Nazor Primary School in Postire on the island of Brač. A total of 75 children of primary school age participated.
Such activities, besides enriching the tourism product, particularly in the summer season when educational content is lacking, also contribute to cooperation between institutions, schools and tourist boards, and bring the science of the sea closer to children as well as to anyone interested.
All activities are co-financed by the StVar-Adri Croatian Science Foundation project and the SHExtreme European Research Council project.
More detailed information can be found on the Facebook page "Oceanographers on the Island" https://www.facebook.com/oceanografi/