During the week of November 8 to 12, additional awareness-raising activities (“water classes”) were conducted as part of the BIO-PLATEAUX project: three days in Saint Laurent du Maroni with the schoolchildren of the elementary school Jacques Voyer II and two days in Albina in the elementary schools of Iporoma and St Gerardus.
The animators of the Guyanese associations la Canopée des Sciences and Ocean Science Logistic were able to meet a Surinamese team from the association Coco-Natural, with the coordination of the International Office for Water. These partners committed to promoting education for young people were able to exchange on their approaches to raising awareness on the themes of water and biodiversity. Together, they were able to present and put into practice with the teachers and pupils of the Maroni schools the tools developed in the framework of the awareness-raising component of the BIO-PLATEAUX project (logbook and poster of the watershed, both available in Dutch, models of the water cycle, virtual reality headsets).
The students were able to discover various scientific animations in order to understand their watershed and the water cycle by observing, drawing or making models. They were also able to visualize their river "seen from the sky" through virtual reality headsets, manipulate models of the water cycle, take water samples around their school and then analyze them under the microscope.
The enthusiasm of the students, their teachers and the animators allows the BIO-PLATEAUX project to foresee great perspectives on the themes of awareness and education for the continuation of the project, which plans to replicate the experience in new schools in the region.
Article on the educational activities led in Saint Georges and Cayenne in May and June 2021: https://www.bio-plateaux.org/fr/node/1639
Video realized for the project by Canopée des Sciences (water class in Saint-Georges de l'Oyapock): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgDvRgygd5M