New educational activities in the InformPack project

During the last school term, at BIOAZUL we conducted a series of educational activities as part of the InformPack project, focused on environmental awareness and recycling. These activities, carried out in collaboration with schools, have been a great success, reflecting a strong interest from the participants in learning about sustainability and from the teachers in embracing new methodologies.

The first set of activities were workshops that were part of a study conducted in Spanish and Polish schools with 4th to 6th grade students. Our goal is to develop more relevant and effective activities. These workshops took place at Academia Santa Teresa and CEIP Prácticas nº1 in Málaga, with two main objectives: to inform students about the three R’s (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) and to assess whether these activities increase their environmental awareness. We carried out three interventions at each school:

1. Recycling Workshop: Students participated in waste collection activities in natural spaces with the collaboration of the Pasaporte Verde program of the Málaga City Council. CEIP Prácticas nº1 carried out its collection in the urban section of the Guadalmedina River, while Academia Santa Teresa did so at Sacaba Beach. Additionally, we held talks on waste segregation and recycling, explaining how the collection and recycling system for each type of packaging works in our city.
2. Reuse Workshop: In this workshop, students learned about objects that can be reused, shared examples of reuse at home, and personalized their own lunch containers. This activity was very popular and allowed students to take home their personalized creations.
3. Reduction Workshop: Students observed packaging that had been buried months earlier to see how they had degraded differently. We discussed how long each type of packaging takes to degrade in both terrestrial and marine environments, helping them understand the ecological footprint of each package and the importance of avoiding excessive use of packaging.

It was incredibly rewarding to see the students’ evolution throughout the workshops, observing how they became aware of the footprint that each individual action has on our immediate environment and how these actions endure over time and have global significance. During the activities, we also had the opportunity to tell them more about the efficiency of the recycling system, the great plastic island in the Pacific, and the beaches of colored glass, among other interesting facts that sparked their desire to learn more. With all this, our feeling was that the students ended the course with a greater awareness of the sustainable use of packaging and that, together, we will help improve our environment.

In addition, during the month of June, we conducted additional workshops at Academia Santa Teresa in Málaga and Pedro Poveda School in Jaén, focused on 1^st to 3^rd grade students. In these activities, we talked about recycling and reuse, highlighting the “recycling race” and lunch container customization as dynamic activities in which the students participated.

During the workshops, we used the video and infographic from the digital campaign “Planet Heroes,” which aims to raise students’ awareness that they have the superpowers needed to help the planet. Recycling, reducing, and reusing are real powers that they can use in their daily lives to help improve our planet.

We loved seeing the willingness of the students and the educational community. The reception of these activities has been so positive that it is very likely that we will hold more events before the end of the year. Awareness of recycling and sustainability continues to grow, and we are excited to continue working together on this mission.