Festival promotes marine science for kids

A kid plays a lucky wheel at Sunday's event. Zhang Yu

The Second International Children’s Ocean Festival, which will last for one month, kicked off at Golden Bay in Dapeng New Area on Sunday.

The festival is the first international ocean festival initiated by nongovernmental organizations, according to the organizers. It is set up to expedite the development of Shenzhen as a global marine city and a child-friendly city.

Meanwhile, the organizers hoped to strengthen children’s marine science education, cultivate children’s awareness of marine environmental protection, and advocate for children to care about and protect the ocean from an early age.

Themed “Sea the Future,” the festival includes a logo competition, a short video contest, an ocean carnival, a marine science education forum, an art exhibition showcasing works made of marine debris, and a monthlong schedule of public welfare activities.

At the opening ceremony, a children’s marine education base was unveiled and excellent entries in the short video contest were showcased.

Yang Yang, a council member of Shenzhen Women and Children’s Development Foundation, said the short video contest, themed “The Ocean with Me,” was an important warm-up activity for the event. So far, many excellent works have been collected online, and submissions will continue to be accepted until June 12.

To echo the theme of the festival, eight children ocean ambassadors were selected. Huang Zishan, a 13-year-old student at Haiyun Middle School, has not only been selected as an ocean ambassador, but was also the winner of the festival’s logo competition.

An online classroom for marine education was also announced at the opening ceremony.

“The classes will be presented in the form of three-to-five-minute short videos. The content will focus on marine life, ecological protection, marine science and technology, marine sports, water safety, marine art and the like,” Ma Haipeng, executive secretary of Shenzhen Blue Ocean Conservation Association, told the Shenzhen Daily.

Through script writing, English translation, voice recording, film editing, problem solving and interactive design, the online classroom aims to become the largest and most influential online platform for popularizing marine science education in China, according to Ma.

The festival is jointly organized by Shenzhen Women and Children’s Development Foundation and Shenzhen Blue Ocean Conservation Association.