Destructive human practices coupled with climate change have led to the degradation of Philippines' rich marine biodiversity. Although there are existing environmental education programs, most of these are aimed at adults and not at children. As the pandemic disrupted social mobility, children’s inaccessibility to environmental education has exacerbated.
SALOM: Diving Into the Waters is a website which aims to educate kids about marine life and dive into the concepts of conservation through animated stories and interactive quizzes. This website utilizes innovative strategies and is designed with creative features to provide virtual underwater experience and simplify complex concepts for the children to grasp the lessons easily and put them into action.
It is inspired by Project TrikEco Tour: SIKAD PARA SA LIMPYONG DAGAT, a community-based project which have used an improvised ship-like mobile library out from a trike to visit coastal communities and teach kids about marine conservation, environmental protection and basic literacy skills through storytelling fun, games and art activities. This project was put to halt due to the health and mobility restrictions caused by the pandemic. However, the will and commitment of the proponents led them to innovate and use technology in order to sustain their advocacy of saving our seas through education and empowerment.
SALOM is currently in the process of content creation, website development and animated film production with the use of open source website builder and video editing software. It is set to be pilot tested by December 2021 in partnership with the Department of Education.
It was a challenge simplifying complex concepts of marine conservation and integrate it into the animated film as well as develop a website that is innovative and at the same time easy to navigate.
SALOM is initially funded by Save Philippine Seas, US Embassy in the Philippines and American Spaces Philippines as one of the winners of the Haquathon 2.0, an ASEAN-wide hackathon for tech-based solutions to save our seas.
We have learned that the key to every environmental problem is education but education must be engaging and innovative.
After the SALOM has been piloted, assessed and improved, the proponents aim to expand its reach to include all children in the globe aged 8 to 12 thru a sub project called Salom: From Reefs to Streams. ‘From Reefs to Streams’ is a concept of bringing the underwater to the virtual screens through live streaming of the animated films and conducting live interactive sessions.
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