| ARCHELON¢s Earth Day event a great success - 03/05/2012 |
As part of the international campaign ¡Mobilize the Earth¢, which aims to increase public awareness about the sustainability of our planet, ARCHELON organized a special event on 22 April at our Sea Turtle Rescue Centre in Glyfada. The event was heavily attended by people of all ages, very popular, and most important of all, succeeded in raising awareness about the problems facing our planet and what we can do to help.
Visitors were able to participate in guided tours of the Rescue Centre given by Centre Co-ordinator Pavlo Tsaros and ARCHELON¢s group of rehabilitation volunteers, watch volunteers as they took care of the turtles currently being cared for at the RC, and learn details about where each turtle had come from, the nature of their injury, and other information relating to how the RC operates.
 In addition, from 11.00-14.00, a special programme of presentations, games, and short films was available to visitors. Anthoula Togia, who is responsible for ARCHELON¢s environmental education programme, gave an informative and interesting slide presentation entitled ¡The Cycle of Nature¢, which illustrated how all parts of the ecosystem are interrelated and work harmoniously. The presentation is especially designed for children, but it also holds an important message for adults.
Two short videos were shown throughout the event in the Sekania wagon: ¡ARCHELON at a glimpse¢, which shows how ARCHELON was founded as well as some of ARCHELON¢s ongoing projects and work to save endangered sea turtles and their habitats, and a version of the children¢s book by Kallio Kastitsiou, ¡Where are you going, little turtle?¢
There were also games for children: an organized game, ¡A turtle¢s travels¢, as well as a quiz in which students had to find the answers to questions by ¡researching¢ the information contained in the educational displays, and a special table where children could draw pictures of what they¢d seen and learned.
 How can we be sure that the event was a great success? It wasn¢t just the fact that over 200 people of all ages attended the event, and it wasn¢t just the fact that the majority of people enthusiastically said they would definitely come to the next ARCHELON event. It was the fact that the visitors – both young and old – all said they had learned things about sea turtles and the environment which they had never known before, and that had been the main goal of the event.
ARCHELON is holding another event at the RC on 27 May, in celebration of the international Day of the Turtle. Details will be posted on the website soon. Hope to see you then!
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