Microplastics - tomorrow's macro problem

"<< Background >>We all know that microplastics are becoming a global ecological problem. As individuals in the general public, we may not even be aware of all plastics and other chemical substances we come into contact with on a daily basis. Sadly, our lives have in recent years become bombarded with many other environmental issues and ecological disasters. Meanwhile, plastics surrounding us have been accumulating in the shape of microplastics in the deepest parts of our world and the deep impact it has already and may have in the future has barely made it into the news. This project is trying to fill that knowledge gap, at least in our youth and their teachers, and later spread on to the public in the countries of participating partners. So, we are mainly addressing the need to raise general awareness about the dangers of microplastics. Thus, this project focuses on spreading knowledge on the increasingly wider environmental problem and what actions we can take to prevent that from happening.Along with this, we are also addressing the need of the teachers who do not have any teaching material to use in the classroom and, therefore, sometimes avoid talking about this problem because they would need to prepare the materials by themselves.<< Objectives >>We mainly wanted to raise awareness about the dangers of microplastics to the youth, their teachers, and the general public.As a result of this, the project is focusing on four main objectives (or topics): - understanding what microplastics are- which are the ways to enter our environments- what risks they pose to our environment and health, and- what are the ways of preventing future mass contamination with microplastics.Along with raising the general awareness of the problem (mainly among the youth) and possibly encouraging pro-environmental behaviour, we wanted to give the teachers quality teaching material they could use in the classroom. This material will help them teach the students about the topic of microplastics more easily because they will already have the materials prepared, and they will not need to spend their time preparing new teaching materials. << Implementation >>We have implemented many activities:- desk research together with the preparation of the webinars (content preparation)- executing 5 webinars with different topics about microplastics in Slovenia- executing 5 webinars with different topics about microplastics in Italy- executing 4 online dissemination events in Slovenia together with a workshop on video production- executing 4 online dissemination events in Italy together with a workshop on video production and video storytelling- preparation of 5 online self-study courses in Slovenian (with videos, readings, hyperlinks to relevant websites, quizzes, gamification)- preparation of 5 online self-study courses in English (with videos, readings, hyperlinks to relevant websites, quizzes, gamification)- piloting and evaluating the online courses- Student video competition for the best video on the topic ""For a future free of microplastics""- final live dissemination event in Italy (which was not foreseen in the project application)- awarding the prizes to the best competitors of the video contest- final live dissemination event in Slovenia (which was not foreseen in the project application) with awarding of prizes for students, participants of the competition<< Results >>The concrete results of our project are:- 5 webinars in Slovenia & 5 in Italy- 4 online dissemination events in Slovenia & 4 in Italy- 5 online classrooms in the Slovenian language & 5 in the English language- ""For a future free of microplastics"" competition- 1 live dissemination event in Italy with awarding prizes to the winners & 1 such event in Slovenia - project website which hosts all the materials from all project events (i.e., interactive recordings, readings, hyperlinks to relevant websites, slides), to be used whenever needed- project YouTube channel, which hosts all the videos created during the project's lifetime & from the video competition- project Facebook page with interesting materialsWe must emphasize another very important result: raising awareness about the problem of microplastics. We attracted many more people than planned (planned: 30 for each event, gained: rarely less than 100 participants). We involved students, teachers, their families, and also other people interested in this problem (e.g., representatives of businesses and research institutes dealing with environmental issues and microplastics).Our media coverage was comprehensive, and we also involved many companies in our project."