In the lower intertidal there is more biodiversity than in the upper area of the sand; in some areas of the beach, more sand accumulates due to coastal drift; the water is more acidic and less salty the closer to the mouth of the river and the waves travel in trains. These basic knowledge of oceanography for the little ones go completely unnoticed while playing with buckets, shovels and sand castles. But this Thursday, and to commemorate World Oceans Day, 155 schoolchildren from the town hall of Moaña were able to approach these scientific facts and do it through practice, with experiments and workshops that they carried out at the foot of the beach. The Campus do Mar, in collaboration with the Association of Oceanographers of Galicia and the Moaña City Council, organized a series of marine outreach activities in the Moaña beach of A Xunqueira distributed in five scientific stations where boys and girls from schools and institutes carried out the experiments accompanied by monitors specialized in the marine environment.
Divided into groups by age, the 155 5th and 6th grade students from the schools of A Guía, Seara, Abelendo and Tirán, as well as ESO students from IES As Barxas completed a tour that consisted of five workshops on physical oceanography, geological oceanography, biological oceanography, chemical oceanography and marine resources. The objective of this initiative is to introduce the scientific method in a simple way in the activities, to learn by carrying out samplings or very simple experiments in situ and to promote critical capacity, analysis and scientific argument.
The activities take place throughout the day, and if in the morning the scientific stations of A Xunqueira welcomed schoolchildren, in the afternoon they opened for families and the general public, promoting both knowledge about the marine environment and awareness of the need to preserve its biodiversity as a key element for the future of the planet.
Science in the sand
El contenido didáctico de esta iniciativa se reparte en actividades variadas agrupadas según su contenido en cinco puestos. Como explican los monitores, en la estación de oceanografía física el objetivo es que tanto jóvenes como adultos sean capaces de medir la distancia entre olas, conocer los parámetros y características del oleaje, etc, mientras que en la estación de oceanografía biológica pueden conocen la biodiversidad de las playas y cómo se comportan los seres vivos de los intermareales. En la parte de oceanografía geológica pudieron ver que los arenales no se comportan igual durante el verano y el invierno y conocer qué factores provocan que cambie su perfil. En la estación química comprobaron las diferencias de salinidad, pH, acidez y cómo varían estas condiciones en diferentes puntos de la playa y, finalmente, en la estación de recursos marinos los participantes pudieron acercarse a los secretos de una de las actividades económicas más representativas del ayuntamiento, el marisqueo a pie, para descubrir las artes, los útiles que se emplean, tipos de especies que se recogen, el sistema de selección de capturas, etc.
