Thionville. At La Milliaire, students get wet for the oceans

The college owes this initiative to Veronique Bastien , an English teacher for more than thirty years at La Milliaire College. The idea was born from his sensitivity to the seabed pollution. An accomplished diver, she travels the oceans with her husband and takes pictures of the species she encounters. He even happened to encounter sharks. “Once, we found ourselves alongside a tiger shark. The important thing is not to move, but I must admit that we weren’t going far, ”she laughs afterwards.

“The most dangerous are the plastic bags that the turtles take for jellyfish”

But in addition to her photos of dolphins or turtles, she also takes pictures of the many wastes that litter the seabed. And that saddens her. “Everything goes there, packets of cigarettes, diapers or fishing nets. The most dangerous are plastic bags that turtles mistake for jellyfish. »

This Thursday, the pupils of six classes of the college and a class of CM2 of the primary school Les Coquelicots found themselves in the Debussy room where they were able to attend the conference of a diving and underwater biology instructor. “I told them that, no, the scuba tanks were not filled with oxygen, but with compressed air,” he smiles. “But, in general, they seemed to me very concerned about the problems of global warming and pollution,” he said.

Teachers also mobilized

At the same time, a good number of professors played the game. A history-geography professor thus proposed a file on maritime professions, a SVT professor on the water cycle or even the music professor had a rehearsal songs related to the ocean. And, no, there was not Octopus’s Garden Beatles in the list… The association Les Pieds sur Terre, based in Yutz, also made an intervention on waste in nature. To top it off, the students were treated to a vegetarian meal in the canteen, without meat or fish. Not sure, on the other hand, that it made them all wriggle with happiness…