We started the project “Som platja” (We are beach), a service-learning project directed at five high schools from Catalan coastal municipalities. This project has the support of the General Directorate of Environmental Policies and Natural Environment of the Department of Territory and Sustainability of the Government of Catalonia.

The general objective of the project is to improve the environmental status of the coastline and beaches, counting on the involvement of students from the participating high schools to do so. Thus, the students will propose and carry out different actions and activities aimed to collaborate with the respective city councils and raise awareness among their neighbors about the natural marine heritage of their municipality and the importance of preserving it. To do this, the project foresees two main activities:

1. Training students on aspects related to the marine environment, the coastline and beaches and raising awareness about a global environmental problem: marine litter.
2. Involving students in maintaining or improving the environmental conditions of their coastline, “adopting” the beach (or one of the beaches) of their municipality.

This beach “adoption” will combine collaborating with the city council (as the competent administration in the beach management), carrying out in situ actions such as the periodic sampling of the accumulated litter (to know its typology and assess its possible ways of entering into the marine environment) and carrying out informative campaigns and actions to sensitize their neighbors.