Anemone fish attracted loud cheers from Perseverance students.

In a large number of cases, young individuals want to contribute towards conservation but they do not know how to it. While there is a lot of education and awareness with young people, these tend to target environment and ecological club students so that the majority of students (not in environmental clubs) are left out. The majority of students, therefore, do not feel the need to contribute to conservation, especially as they grow up without gaining first-hand experience in environment protection and conservation. The activities being proposed through this project will be done in such a way that all secondary and primary school students are able to participate, be educated and receive information that will increase their knowledge of conservation and enable them to create awareness at school and in their communities.

The project aims to promote coral reef conservation by educating youths, through presentations for both students and their teachers. It will also use snorkelling activities to show youths the coral reef ecosystems that they will help to conserve so that they develop a sense of ownership for these ecosystems and feel the need to participate in its conservation, while passing on what they learn to other youths and communities. A cartoon competition and subsequent exhibition will allow these students to show the general public what conservation means for youths and pass on messages for protecting and conserving their marine environment.

These messages will then be shared with the local communities through the media and exhibitions. The hope is that the young people can help educate the older generation and help in changing of bad attitudes that lead to destruction of the environment. These activities will also lead to increased interest of students for marine research and hopefully encourage students to look at marine research for future work prospects.