The Croatian Report on
The South Eastern Mediterranean Sea Project in the Year 1998
"Water for Life"
Synopsis
Last year, in 1997 SEMEP has addressed the theme "The Sea and Us" and in Croatia we have had the participation of: 344 students, 203 teachers, 32 schools, and 20 cities, all along the coastline and islands of the Adriatic Sea.
In the year 1998 and the theme "Water for Life" participants were some: 650 students, 251 teachers, 36 schools in 25 cities. The most significant increase was observed in the number of students participating, which we consider as the most important achievement. SEMEP is about students and teachers of the Mediterraenean, therefore they merit credit and recognition of their individual names at least in the List of Participants.
We have managed to organize the Second National Summer School of SEMEP in The International Centre of Croatian Universities in Dubrovnik, 25-29 May 1998, which was associated with the scientific conference on "Elafite Islands - Past, Present and Future" prepared by the Centre for Mediterranean Studies of the University in Zagreb. Participants were 24 SEMEP-students and 10 SEMEP-teachers and they have taken active part in the Conference which has introduced history, culture, archaeology and history of art in SEMEP, in addition to our classical themes.
Some newcomers to SEMEP project, have chosen to work this year on the theme "The Sea And Us", again. Several teachers reported that last year's programme was generally more stimulating for students and better defined. Croatian experience on the theme "The Sea and Us" was reported at the IUCN-European Committee for Environmental Education (Warsaw-Mikolajki, 1997) and subsequently we were invited to contribute the text to the book "Marine Environmental Education Initiatives in Scotland, and Some further UK and European Examples", edited by SM Atkins, JBL Matthews and JC Smyth, The Scottish Association for Marine Science, Edinburgh, 1998.
"Croatian SEMEP program" was initiated by participating teachers which stimulates free selection of environmental topics of local importance irrespective of the main themes of SEMEP and hopefully filling in the gap between the summer vacations and the new program the next year. The late cancellation of the Second Summer School of SEMEP in Greece did not help to keep the spirits high, either. Perhaps organization of the significantly larger National Summer Schools with many more participants will manage to keep the spirits high all the year round, and something for students to look forward to. The Island of Vis might offer such a facility.
Student worksheets for "Water in Our Life" were seriously tackled in most of our schools. In spite of the ambivalence of what is the obligatory, most of our schools handled all the 7 worksheets with equal attention. Water distillery was constructed and video film recorded on water filters. Information on wate
r management in Karst was supplied by help of the croatian book of Dr. Nives Štambuk Giljanović: "Waters of Dalmatia", and was supplied to every school which did not have one so far. Students and teachers were creative in designing tables, charts and logos. Such a nice variety and scope of designs made it next to impossible to draw out of it the consistent pattern of data and charts that would be ready for exchange with other schools and other countries, even by a regular mail. Too bad the mail was downplayed in spite of being the best option for effective communication in the Mediterranean countries and schools nowadays, with so few of them properly equipped.An attempt to enable multilateral communication and exchange of data for "Water for Life" by e-mail did not work. First the e-mail addresses have been dispatched from Paris to countries much too late, and secondly the lists did not work at all. Not a single international e-mail communication effort was successful. With some twenty schools of ours
having e-mail addresses, it is hard to understand what has gone wrong this time. Foreseeing such a difficulty in the due time we were happy to accept the offer of Dipl. Ing. Svetko Perković, the Principal of the Maritime School in Zadar to make his well equipped School as the Croatian Focal Point for SEMEP e-mail communications, but even with his competent help, and help of his and other students in Zadar, not much has happened. Besides that, the discrimination against the schools which are not well equipped with Pentiums for Internet communication is the last thing that UNESCO should endeavour! Therefore, we have declared that none of the school should be discriminated against for not having the strongest computers at their disposal, and equally valuable is the work carried with the oldest of computers and printers, even more the work carried without them.
Mr. sc. Marina Rudenjak-Lukenda, Deputy NC Croatia, reporting
Prof. Dr. Draško Šerman, NC for Croatia, writing
Professor Dr. Draško Šerman
Croatian National Coordinator for SEMEP
University of Zagreb Medical School, Department of Biology
10000 Zagreb, Šalata 3
Croatia, Tel +385 1 4655658, Fax +385 1 420 323,
e-mail: sermand@mef.hr