FAO feeds young minds on responsible aquaculture

Pacific educators looking for appropriate content for OLPC Oceania XS school servers should investigate the exhaustive array of online resources collected by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) for its Feeding Minds Fighting Hunger initiative. FAO, the UN agency leading international efforts to defeat hunger, has produced a rich online educational resource on all aspects fisheries and aquaculture. It includes a learning module of special relevance to our region, ‘Wonders of the Oceans’, which aims to:

"...teach 8-12 year olds the importance of conserving our aquatic resources through responsible fisheries and aquaculture. We have selected six major themes to learn and explore the world’s oceans: the richness of the oceans; creatures inhabiting the oceans; food from the oceans; people who depend on the oceans; bad and good practices and their impacts on the oceans; the importance of acting responsibly regarding the oceans.

Each theme includes lessons containing the core learning content and curious facts with associated activities (both group and individual) and additional information. There are a total of 17 lessons.

At the beginning of each lesson, students will follow the amazing journey of Captain Costa, the experienced captain of a fishing boat, and Lisa, his 12-year-old granddaughter. Together they will discover the wonders of the oceans and students will learn through these experiences.

To set the stage, each lesson is prefaced by a short exchange – either through a conversation or a postcard – involving Captain Costa and Lisa.

In 1995 the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries was adopted by 191 countries at the FAO Conference. This signalled a major step in promoting the move towards acting responsibly in regards to all aquatic resources and their ecosystems. Through the learning achieved in these lessons, FAO hope that students the world over will understand the importance of the Code.