Guardiani della Costa is an environmental education project for Italian schools.
Launched in 2017, Guardiani della Costa is a Costa Crociere Foundation project involving Italian schools of all levels with the aim of:
- Promoting knowledge of the Mediterranean marine environment
- Promoting the conservation of biodiversity
- Protecting the coasts and the sea from pollution and waste
To date, the project has involved over 88,000 Italian students.
For high school students, Guardiani della Costa becomes a ‘citizen science’ programme that involves monitoring the coastal environment on four parameters:
- Coastal vegetation and dunes: to assess the state of naturalness of Italian beaches
- Beachcombing: to characterise the materials deposited by the sea on beaches
- Micro and mesoplastic monitoring: to quantify small plastic debris on beaches
- Beach cleaning: to keep our beaches clean and educate new generations on environmental protection.
The data collected is processed by the ENEA partner to extract valuable information on the ecological status of the beaches analysed. Based on this data, the programme proposes educational activities of scientific value, developed to be easily accessible online (DATI RACCOLTI – Guardiani della Costa) and engaging even for a non-expert audience.