I said, "Yes mom, will I forget? I know how important it is to wear a mask." The school bus had stopped on time. I got on the bus, the bus driver Uncle Ahmet and all my friends on the bus were masked. I thought for a moment. How good were the old days. There was no Corona and we were playing very nice games with my friends on the street and at school. There was no curfew. We enjoyed our childhood. Is it so now? Everywhere is closed, I can no longer go out even on weekends. The weather is starting to warm up. Summer is coming. Everywhere is green, animals can roam freely in the streets, parks and gardens. How lucky are they.

   

   In the classroom, we are no longer all in the classroom at the same time. We can come to school on different days with my dear friends. I miss my friends. And sooooooo much. Even though I can see them in online classes, I can hear their voices, but on live broadcast, it's not like we're playing ball or hugging... I miss even the mischief and whining we do while playing games.

    The subject of our first lesson is Corona, hygiene and ways of protection. We all wear masks in the classroom, including our teacher. I'm tired of the heat. I miss the days when we took deep breaths.

    -" Teacher, how comfortably animals and plants live. Ohhhh no school, no wearing masks. No Corona. They live happily in parks, gardens and seas, they play games. But isn't it unfair?"

     My friends also supported me. Ceyla took the floor:

- Yes, teacher, this is unfair. How nice to be an animal. They have no problems. They enjoy the world."

Aslı: Of course, they are very lucky. No going to school, no homework, no corona anyway.

Çağatay: Friends, it is not like that at all. Our world is getting more and more polluted. As human beings, we are harming our environment. We are destroying the habitats of animals. Come and ask them how happy they are.

Yes guys, you know we have an eTwinning project. Surfing The Growing Sea Of Knowledge. In this project, we will also focus on these issues. Here is a very good opportunity for you. Is it really like this guys?

Do you think that animals living in the seas, streets and forests live very comfortably and happily? Then I will give you the subject of research. For this, I will also meet with my teacher friends in our project. Let them talk about the same issue with their students. Let's see what the result will be. (Let's divide the class into groups. Let a group research the seas, the creatures living in the seas, how happy they live, a group of street animals, plants, a group of animals living in the forests and their living conditions. Let a group of our students do research about our environment. You can also meet and get help from them. Let's create groups.)

DREAM : Together with our friends from the project, two friends from each school came to Mersin. We met them at the airport. We are from Azerbaijan, Albania, Spain, Poland, Samsun, Zonguldak, Gaziantep and Mersin. Along with our friends, their teachers also came. We were very happy. It was really great to meet friends from different countries and cities and to be together with them.

We all got on the bus to our school.

We showed our friends around our school and classrooms. Then we had dinner together and hosted our friends in our homes. The next day we all took a nice Mersin Tour together. We introduced Mersin to them.

We immediately went to him and greeted him. But when the turtle saw us, it started to move quickly towards the sea.....it got in front of it and stopped it.

Caretta: Hey, human beings, get out of my way. We were all surprised.

Why was he telling us that?

............... : What happened, caretta, why are you saying that? What did we do to you?

Caretta: It wasn't you, but children like you... They come to the beach and torture us. Do you see the state of the beach? Everywhere is dirty. You come to the sea, throw your garbage and plastic here and leave. You never think of us.

We were all very surprised.

...............:But how can we not harm you. We are very sorry.

Caretta: What about the seas? You also polluted them. Everywhere is covered with plastic waste. Ropes and fishing nets do us great harm. Unfortunately, our friends caught in them cannot escape. Have you heard of sea spit? It's approaching here. I hope it never comes. Our friends in the Marmara Sea were very affected by this situation. They had to leave their homes and migrate to other places.

What a sad situation. We humans were destroying life with our own hands. We went down to the beach with our masks on. I thought the sea was blue. However, this was an area covered in gray and white. It looked very bad.

We boarded our ship and followed the Aegean and Mediterranean route to Spain. The farther from the shore, the more blue the color of the sea became. It means that we humans have polluted the coasts a lot. On the way, Mediterranean dolphins were singing and accompanying our ship. We were watching them with admiration. It was as if they understood that we were smart, environmentalist children and were thanking us.

This weekend, taking advantage of the nice weather and especially the end of the state of alert due to the pandemic, they decided to head to the Mediterranean.

It was a train ride and soon they started walking along the beach, looking for a quiet place to admire the beauty of the sea.

Their families chartered a small yacht to spend the day, and while the elders chatted, Miguel and Maria decided to take a swim. Soon a group of dolphins joined them while they were swimming, and the children discovered they could communicate with them. What a joy, how could they?
Children were invited to immerse themselves in them and enjoy the beauty of the seabed. The bottom of the sea was full of beautiful stones, reefs, algae, sea sponges, and they could see a group of seahorses. They spoke seamlessly with the marine animals and had long conversations with man and his pollution, until the matter got even more serious.

A sea turtle with a shell deformed by plastic drink rings spoke sadly about the pollution problem. There are sea areas and extinct species that will be very difficult to recover.

The children enjoyed the walk but also learned a little from everything they saw.

As the new generation, they are committed to taking care of their homes (land, sea and air), reducing resources, recycling as much as possible and living in harmony with nature. We can if we want.

- Teacher, after examining the fish, we came to the conclusion that the fish seem happy on the surface but are actually worried. Even fish and all sea creatures are endangered by marine pollution. Covid 19 caused hospital waste like masks in the seas.

For this reason, we think that sea creatures are upset and feeling the covid 19 situation.

We should have done something together.

We sat down and wrote the article.

Together we prepared a report.

What should we do to avoid polluting our seas, keep them clean and protect them?

1. Garbage should not be thrown into the sea, those who throw it should be prevented,

2. Food should not be thrown into the sea until 12 miles from the shore,

3. Every precaution should be taken to prevent spilling diesel, gasoline or oil into the sea while refueling or changing the engine oil,

5. When we see marine mammals (dolphins, whales, etc.) on the cruise, we are careful not to harm them and the boat should be navigated more carefully,

6. In order not to damage the bottom structure, we carefully choose our anchorage, we should not anchor in sea meadows.

8. We should separate our daily garbage that can be sent for recycling from others,

9. The wastes arising from our maintenance and repair works should be disposed of in accordance with the procedure, and should not be thrown into the sea in any way,

Those who are fishing by trawling should be reported to the Coast Guard,

Urban sewers should definitely be biologically treated and pumped into undercurrents in the seas after they are purified from heavy metals,

Those who discharge sewage trucks and septic tanks into the sea should be reported to the relevant state authorities,

Financial and moral support should be given to the state or voluntary organizations related to sea cleaning,