Discussing all things marine plastic pollution with upper secondary school students

The CIRCNETS team in Oulu participated in an Innovation Camp event organized by the Aurora Entrepreneurialis project on 23^rd of April. Aurora Entrepreneurialis develops and promotes entrepreneurship education in collaboration with upper secondary schools in Oulu, Torne Valley and Norrbotten regions of Finland and Sweden and their objective is to develop secondary-level schools’ entrepreneurship education, with focus on entrepreneurial culture in schools, sustainable entrepreneurship in education and cross-border collaboration.

In the Innovation Camp event, students participated in sessions which provided them with background information on subjects under different themes and what challenges lie within these subjects. After that, students brainstormed possible solutions for the presented challenges and at the end of the camp, proposed their solution to others.

Team Oulu held three sessions to students under the theme “Save the Bothnian Bay”, in which the CIRCNETS project fits in nicely. The sessions were also an EMD in My Country event. The aim of the sessions was to introduce the students to marine plastic pollution and discuss the role of fishing in it. Since CIRCNETS is also interested in what could be done with the collected EOL fishing gear, the students were also introduced to the different waste management options and circular economy in general.

The sessions were interactive and to gather some new ideas and thoughts, the students were asked, among other things, how they feel about products made from recycled materials and how they would raise awareness about the new fishing gear collection. Getting ideas from the youth was valuable and interesting to hear!