Emma and the dolphins clean up the Newport beaches

I completed my first week of providing summer camp education at Clean Ocean Access. In the morning, I was able to help with a beach clean up at Easton Beach with Immaculate Conception Church’s summer camp. Later, I educated children at a Aquidneck Island Day Camp about echolocation and noise pollution.

I did the beach clean up with the help of a great group of elementary to middle school children. The children were very interested in the beach clean-up. They were very excited about getting a trash grabber stick (which I was passing out), and using it to pick up litter. When it came to the clean-up, they were very efficient and collected over 23 pounds of trash. Some interesting items they found were shoes and sunglasses. However, frustratingly, they were unable to get a rope that was stuck in the ground. We had a lot of fun!

In the afternoon, I educated children at Aquidneck Island Day Camp about echolocation and noise pollution through two games. In the first game, children formed groups of two, and one child would be blind-folded while the other got a clicker. Then the child with the clicker would guide the blind-folded child through cones by communicating through a series of clicks.

The second game was similar to Marco Polo, but with dolphins and fish. Initially, the dolphins were able to find the fish quite easily. However, after “oil tanks” (the children would make a lot of noise by clapping) came into the ocean, they would make it a lot more difficult for the dolphins to find the fish. The day was split into younger kids (ages 4-7) and older kids (8-12).

We first had the younger children (ages 4-7). They sometimes had a hard time following directions and some of them didn’t know their right from left (which they needed for the first game). Still, they all had fun. There were two very endearing sibling “dolphins” who would hug when they ran into each other. Several times, the brother remarked “she’s my sister”.

Next, we had the older group (ages 8-12). The older group was much smaller and they better understood echolocation and noise pollution. They knew their right from left, so the first game went a lot more smoothly! However, during the second game, two of the kids bumped heads and began to cry, so we had to promptly stop the game.

This first week allowed me to learn the ropes of doing summer camp education. I think that I should improve on being a bit louder and assertive, since the children can have a difficult time listening to directions. I also think that I should work on presenting the information more clearly to younger participants. Overall, I had a lot of fun and I can’t wait for the next time!