ATLANTIS visits second graders

Francesca Verones and Martin Dorber visited a second class in Trondheim to teach and inform about plastic and its environmental impacts. We talked about how plastics are made, how much is thrown away and what happens with the plastic that is not properly managed.

The children were very engaged and quick to find all the things that are made from plastic in their classroom, which turned out to be many and diverse things from laminated paper, to bags and T-shirts, boxes and pens, to water bottles and chairs.

We had collected a box of plastic waste from the coastal area in Mausund, an island outside the Trondheimsfjorden, where a lot of plastic is found. The kids enjoyed digging through the waste and were astonished to find the diversity of plastic items they could find, from fishing lines, to bottle caps, pacifiers, plastic bags and toys.

It was impressive to see how much the children already knew about how plastic is affecting marine wildlife. We talked about entanglement and ingestion, and we shared experiences and pictures from the stay in Hawaii.

The children also had very good ideas for how to reduce the plastic problem!

All in all, this was a visit that made us hopeful for the future. Despite the large issue with plastic today, the youngest generation seems to be very aware of the problems and is aware of solutions to mitigate the issue. They are interested and curious to learn more about the impacts and solutions. If we can in the coming years put all the solutions to actual practice, this will definitely help to solve the global plastic problem once and for all!