We and the ocean... 209 kms apart.

Environmental education in Portuguese schools aims to promote awareness and increase the sensitivity of children and young people to environmental and sustainable issues, encouraging their active participation in decision-making and in solving environmental problems. It also aims to encourage the adoption of sustainable practices in everyday life, both individually and collectively. Children and young people are encouraged to develop skills, attitudes and values that enable them to adopt responsible and sustainable behavior towards the environment. To this end, projects are developed, often interdisciplinary, which aim to train aware and responsible citizens, capable of contributing to building a more sustainable and ecologically balanced society.

In the Portuguese educational system, in the subject of Natural Sciences, 7^th grade students study the external dynamics of the Earth, describe the landscape around the school, identify some minerals in hand samples of rocks and minerals and relate the action of external geodynamic agents to the shaping of different landscapes, focusing on the Portuguese context. They also study the structure and internal dynamics of the Earth, summarizing information on the Theory of Continental Drift, describing the morphology of the ocean floor and relating the expansion and destruction of the ocean floor to the Theory of Plate Tectonics and the constancy of the Earth's volume and mass.

In the 8^th grade, the subject of Natural Sciences covers aspects related to the conditions necessary for the existence of life on Earth, exploring the dynamics between the Earth's subsystems, allowing for a plural and unfinished scientific interpretation of the evolution of life on the planet and recognizing the importance of scientific knowledge in promoting the sustainability of planet Earth. The aim is for students to become aware of the impact of human intervention on the Earth and the need to adopt active and fair citizenship behaviors that are consistent with sustainable development. Another aim is to interpret the influence of some polluting agents on ecosystems, starting from local or regional problems and critically analyzing the results obtained.

The D. Afonso III School Group in Vinhais and the Abade de Baçal School Group in Bragança, are located in the north of Portugal, more than 200 kilometers from the coast. The students in these schools have sporadic contact with the ocean, often restricted to the summer holidays and when they go on field trips to the coast. The 7^th and 8^th graders were challenged to think locally in order to act globally: to what extent are they really aware that their actions, in a region so far from the coast, actually have an impact on the ocean? Does sea pollution have any impact on the daily lives of residents in the municipalities of Vinhais and Bragança?