COLLECT Project

COLLECT (Citizen Observation of Local Litter in Coastal ECosysTems) is a project organized by the Partnership for Observation of the Global Ocean (POGO) and is led by Dr. Catarino from the Flanders Marine Institute (Belgium) and Dr. Mahu from the University of Ghana (Ghana). The goal of this project is to acquire data on marine plastic debris distribution and abundance on the coasts of African countries, by training citizen scientists (secondary school students) and promoting knowledge transfer between local communities, researchers and members of POGO. Students will be recruited to learn how to sample and process marine plastic in the context of a citizen science activity. To assess the educational, behavioral, and well-being impact of this activity, students will be asked to fill in a short survey two weeks before activities start and one week after activities finish. The survey will be distributed using the online platform Limesurvey or in paper format and will be completed during class. Questions are about the students’ awareness and knowledge of, behaviors and attitudes towards, marine litter and the students’ level of nature connectedness and wellbeing. This pre-registration only concerns the social science component of the project, namely the evaluation of the impact of the citizen science intervention on the participants, through the means of a survey.