Environmental
Ocean For Life ơ Written by: Abrar Al Shammari
Held from July 14th till the 26th, the summer course took place at the University of California, in Santa Barbara›s Marine Science Institute. ͔͗ the world were chosen and spent 12 days together, learning about ơ the environments of their local areas. The cultural diversity was a smart move on the program’s behalf, since each student would return to his country and apply what he learned to his own community, thus ƪ Ǥ Ocean for Life participants learned about the interconnectedness between Earth’s physical systems, such as the ocean, and human actions. They attended lectures, seminars, and presentations that would portray the ơ ’s negligence is having on the environment and its inhabitants: plants, animals, and humans.
Few high school students can Bader Al Habib and Basmah Al-‐Mesad,
go back to school in September honestly saying they had a productive Ǥ Ƥ ǡ most Kuwaiti highschoolers sit together at lunch talking about the shopping they did in London, the clubbing they did in Beirut, the assortment of activities they did in Dubai, the guy/girl-‐hunting they did in Spain, and of course, the endless hours of sleeping they did in Kuwait. 54 / Issue: 2 Sep 2011
two seventeen-‐year-‐old Kuwaiti students at the American International School of Kuwait, broke their annual routine this year and chose to do ơ Ǥ ǡ they applied to Ocean for Life, an environmental program associated with well-‐known organizations and media sponsors such as The GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations Ƥ Ȍ the National Geographic Society.
For Bader, who has been practicing photography since middle school, Ƥ many aspects. In addition to his sense of environmental awareness being heightened, he was also given the opportunity to develop his photography skills. The participants were each gifted a professional camera from Ocean for Life, and were expected to take photographs on a daily basis, based on the assignment given to them for that day. For Basmah, this was a new introductory experience that she enjoyed, and through the camera lens, was able to see beauty in the things we overlook each day: all parts of nature, and the ocean.