Atlantic Youth Project

by Caoimhe McMahon

Transition Years are taking part in the Atlantic Youth Project for this school year and we are really excited about it!

TYA had a presentation hosted by Dr. Simon Berrows of the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group. He spoke to them about his job and all that it involves. He showed them videos and taught them how to identify a species by their behaviour, appearance and where they were seen. They also learned how to report a sighting. Finally, they learned how to identify different whales and dolphins by the marking on their fins.

TYB took part in a video conference along with Scariff Secondary School, which was hosted by Dr. Noirin Burke of Galway Aquarium and Irish Ocean Literacy Network. She spoke to us about how important the sea is and the many benefits it provides us with. She also discussed the wide range of careers that are connected to the sea and our oceans. We all got involved in the discussion too! Dr. Noirin created a slido online so that we could communicate with her and the students in Scariff through messages. There were different polls and questions on the slido such as, “what does the ocean mean to you?” and “what is the most important thing that the ocean provides us with?”. All of our answers were put into a word cloud for everyone to see online. These questions definitely got us all thinking and made us realise how important our oceans are to us and all that we can do because of them. We also spoke about what we can do to protect and conserve our oceans. 

After these presentations, I think everyone has a new appreciation for the sea and how lucky we are to have it on our doorstep. We are all really looking forward to continuing and progressing in this project.