On 4 February 2014, Ocean Elements Dive Centre organized an "Ocean Awareness Program" with the school kids of SK Seri Pangkor Primary School on Pangkor Island, Perak.

En Mohd Halimi Abdullah, Director of Ocean Elements who is also a PADI Scuba Instructor, gave a talk to 33 Year 4 students of SK Seri Pangkor on “Plastic Pollution in the Ocean”. The students were treated to a presentation highlighting the issue of thrash in the ocean, which mainly consists of plastic and their impact towards marine life. The students also saw two short videos on the journey of plastic from a supermarket to the sea and the impact of plastic to the colonies of birds on Midway, a remote atoll on the North Pacific Ocean. 

SK Seri Pangkor students then joined the facilitators from Ocean Elements and our event co-organizers from Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) to collect thrash along a 1-kilometer stretch of Pantai Pasir Bogak, a popular beach on Pangkor Island.

At the end of the 2-hour program, more than 100kg of thrash comprising mostly of plastic materials, glass bottles and food wrappers were collected from the beach and sorted for Project AWARE statistics. 

All 33 students of SK Seri Pangkor were treated to a delicious meal, specially packed in reusable plastic containers and water bottles sponsored by the Giant Hypermarket, one of Malaysia’s largest chain of retailers and supermarkets. Each student will later receive a certificate of participation from Project AWARE. 

Link to the photo galleries for this event here and here.