Today the four interns visited SMKN 1 Tourism High School to give a presentation about marine environment and conservation. We were scheduled to start at 10 o’clock, but by 8 we were already in the classroom practising to make it perfect.

Our mission was not only to increase the students’ awareness about manta rays and other marine life, but also to encourage them to recognise the natural beauty and value of Labuan Bajo and Komodo National Park. This was a big opportunity for us to implement our new knowledge and communication skills, and we tried to put include all the important points that we had learned, including loss, love, need, and action messages.

As we arrived, the teachers welcomed us and introduced us to 100 students sitting in big auditorium. Were we nervous? Not at all! We could feel their excitement from the smile of curiosity on their faces, and it made us excited too!

We began the seminar by embracing their knowledge about Labuan Bajo, because of course they are tourism students and the future of Labuan Bajo. It was fun. It almost felt like we learned from each other because in this session, they were smarter than us. We talked about the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of Labuan Bajo by analysing a tourism video together. After that, we shared our knowledge and experience about manta rays, including the characteristics of each species, their behaviour, how to recognise each gender and the identification pattern. We also encouraged them to understand the manta ray code of conduct and how to report a manta encounter to MantaWatch Online.

Carefully reading the manta code of conduct

Hopefully, in the future, they will be able to give a manta briefing to the tourists. At the end of the seminar, we gave them some questions to evaluate their knowledge (and our teaching skills!) and the result was… 85% of the students could answer the questions correctly. Good job!

Manta quiz winners and citizen scientists

After lunch, we were back in our classroom. All the interns worked together to brainstorm ideas for our week three video storyboard and prepare our final presentation for the Komodo National Park Authority. We realised that time flies so fast, and soon our MIP experience will come to an end. But for today we are all happy, and inspired by meeting the next generation of students who will be the future of Labuan Bajo.