Afuso Jr Highschool Outreach

Core members of the University Marine Initiative visited Afuso Jr Highschool in Onna-son to teach marine ecology and ocean conservation.

Afuso Jr Highschool is situated right in front of the beautiful Afuso beach so we decided to take the lesson outside.

The connection between these students and their ocean ecosystems was extremely encouraging and is in no doubt partly down to their accessibility to such a beautiful and well maintained beach.

The class was the best that UMI has ever run. This was all thanks to the kindness and energy of the science teacher Ushiro-sensei. With Ushiro-sensei's support, the students were extremely engaged and curious about the marine ecosystems of Okinawa.

One student even wrote an article in the local newspaper (see attached file for original article). Translated into English it says:

We are studying about corals in our integrated studies class for this semester.

We visited Global Oceanographic Data Center (GODAC) to learn about the oceans. Also, researchers from Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) came to our school to teach science. We went to the beach behind our school with the OIST researchers to find out how much microplastic was there. Another day, we went kayaking to observe coral reefs. I learned that corals come in different shapes and many beautiful colors, and that experience made me think that we should preserve those amazing coral reefs. I believe that it’s important to reduce marine litter and not to dump garbage in nature.

I’d like to learn more and observe many more beautiful corals. We should take good care of coral reefs.