The famous English broadcaster, Sir David Attenborough’s critically acclaimed documentary “Our Blue Planet” made it impossible for us to look at our blue oceans in the same way again. It is a grim subject but deserves attention and concern, also from young children.
For the uninitiated, imagine looking at pictures of a different kind - a turtle trapped in a fishing nest, carcass of an erstwhile-mighty albatross baring its plastic-littered stomach, a seagull munching on a crisps-bag or a baby seal choking on a plastic bag. Sadly, something as shocking and heartbreaking is the new normal for ocean life today.
Apparently, the overzealous use of our favorite material has found a way to get into our oceans. One garbage truck of plastic is dumped into our oceans every minute*. By 2050, there could be more plastics in the ocean than fish (by weight)**!
This reckless and appalling contamination of our precious resource is mainly understood to be caused by beverage litter (bottles, caps, lids), lost or disposed fishing nets, synthetic fibers, plastic bags, straws, cutlery, etc.
So when the opportunity arose to highlight the situation before young minds, I felt compelled to introduce the grim reality to the young schoolers. My son had his ‘Show & Tell’ on the topic ‘Under the Sea’ and we both decided to present something that would draw attention to the cause. It helped that we had discussed the topic before and he was naturally inclined.
My son didn’t want to include any “sad” pictures that could upset the class, so we made a ‘Sad Fish, Happy Fish’ version of our own. That's how we went about it.
