“I’m sorry Blue, I like you, but I think you are quite dangerous to marine animals like us.” said Mori, the Moorish idol fish. This conversation occured at the end of the puppet performance presented by the CTC team as part of Ocean Keeper Club Session 4: “Beware of Plastic Waste!” that was held on July 23, 2022.

This month’s theme is to celebrate the global campaign #PlasticFreeJuly. We were joined by 51 students who were largely from Bali, Java, and Kalimantan. After reviewing last month’s material on the importance of coral reefs as one of the key marine ecosystems, the students were shown puppet performances by CTC team and learned about the dangers of plastic pollution to our ecosystem.

The online puppet performance, entitled “Who’s the Blue?”, tells the story of Mori’s new mysterious friend, named Blue. The character Blue in the story represents a plastic bag in the ocean. The main idea of the story aims to show the participants that plastic bags could be a danger to our marine ecosystem. Throughout the story, it also showed that most marine animals are threatened by plastic bags. 

After learning about the dangers of plastic pollutants to our marine ecosystems with the help of the Club’s virtual learning assistants, Max and Mindy, Octa the Octopus wrapped up the fun-learning event with a plastic quiz. Students were very engaged and confidently provided answers to each of the questions. 

One of the participants from SDN 2 Sanur, Ayu Dyah Yunita Sari, said that she enjoyed and was delighted with this session. “The most favorite part of this session was when Octa the Octopus told us to not put our trash in the ocean and to bring our own bottles for daily activity.” 

The next Ocean Keeper’s Club event will be held in August. Look out for announcements from us regarding future sessions with the Ocean Keeper’s Club. To register for the next session, you can follow the steps here: https://savingoceansnow.com/ocean-keeper/

Photos by Prasiwi Bestari/CTC