Photography helps preserve our coast line

SCHOOLS in some of the Eastern Cape's poorer coastal towns will soon be learning about the sea life around them, with a programme teaching them about preserving the country's coastal line.

The Sustainable Seas Trust educational programme will see pupils exploring the province's beaches in search of the various species of coastal sea life, taking pictures of them and finding out as much as they can about them.

Through a donation of 40 Canon cameras from the Sustainable Seas Trust (SST), the exciting photo-conservation programme will be extended to poorer schools – situated in coastal towns – that cannot afford the camera equipment.

Pupils from Kenton-on-Sea Primary School, Whittleseas's Kamvalesizwe Public School and Marselle's Nompucuko Combined and Klipfontein Primary schools received Canon A2500 cameras.

SST communication representative, Maya Lloyd, accompanied the pupils on their first outing with the cameras.

Lloyd said the aim was to make visits to the beach more than that, encouraging pupils to make discoveries while having fun on the shores and estuaries.

"Photography lends a special component to SST's educational programme as it focuses the pupils' attention and develops their observational skills, both key to looking at the world with a scientist's eye," she said. - Chanice Koopman