Report 1    from Camp d’Aprenentatge
Friday, 18th (15,15h). Pupils are leaving from Camp d’Aprenentatge. Now, they are going back home. They will arrive at Barcelona in two hour´s time. They number 37 (12, 13 and 14 years old) and they have been away with three teachers. All in all they have spent five days on interpreting the Ebro delta. This has been our third group of visitors and over twenty five more groups are waiting for us.
    

On Thursday, those pupils made a survey along the Trabucador isthmus which connects the mainland with the bird sanctuary of Punta de la Banya. As announced, the isthmus will be our core-site for the first year of the Mare Nostrum Project.

They already knew about the dynamic of the Ebro river and about the significance of the lagoons . That day, our main aim was that pupils became aware of the fragility of the area as the result of our way of life.

At the same time, we had other, secondary aims:

-         The sandy bar is migrating.
-         The bar occasionally gets flooded.
-         The bar is a sort of “story listings”.
-         The bar contains natural values that are worthy of protection.


The day started at 9 o’clock in the morning. Our motivation phase consisted of:
  • Showing that the meaning of the “Delta concept” contradicts the idea of something static, quiet, being without movement.

  • Checking that by comparing different maps of the Delta used by our pupils through history (in a figurative sense, of course).

  • Knowing how the dynamism of the Delta was noted in the past, by reading a piece of news (based upon a real text) from the 16th century in which the river floods and the  sediments carried by the river were blamed for the never ending growing of the delta.

  • Showing that the amount of sediments carried by the river has decreased by 99% nowadays in coincidence with the increasing water use (for irrigation, for supplying cities´ needs, etc.) Therefore, the vision of a growing delta has absolutely changed (as proved by the reading of another piece of news, published in our days).

  • Introducing Trabucador isthmus and Punta de la Banya peninsula as some of the most fragile areas that can be affected by both, the lack of sediments and the climatic change.
The survey needed a bus shuttle service from Camp d’Aprenentatge to the shoreline (15 km away). There, the pupils going with their teachers took bikes and “the adventure" started.        
Trabucador isthmus hasn’t recovered yet from the effects of the last easterly storms in autumn & winter 2001 (and who knows whether it could ever recover). As a result, the actual status of the sandy track is absolutely dreadful. Moreover, the north-westerly wind had risen the sea level and the sand was very wet, so even riding bikes was very painful.     

After an hour of bike-riding, the group arrived at Banya peninsula. Before that, we were forced to leave behind us the supporting van due to the bad conditions

Incredibly, French lorries were driven along the flooded tracks carrying salt from the nearby salty works.

 

of the sandy track. Pupils could check first hand the fragility of the area, highly affected by both, eastern and north-western winds: the bar has already lost 60 m of width on average between 1957 and 1997. During these years, three dams have been built in the lower Ebro, one of them with a capacity of 1.500 hm3 that keeps behind as much sediment as was needed to raise the level of the whole Ebro delta by 50 cm . Obviously, a proper management of those dams (and its sediments) is urgently required.

After discussing widely about all those topics, we focussed our attention on the messages left by both, the sea and human beings on the beach. We suggested that every little object was hiding a funny story. Pupils were asked to open-up their minds. The most suggesting and telling object should be found and an imaginative (or real) story should be made up:

Why was the object exactly there?

To whom did the object belong ?

Would the object still be there in a day´s time?
And in a week´s time? One hundred years later? Finally, when it  was possible, we tried to link each student`s story with the realities of the area.

We moved around the area at will for a while and then we biked back towards the mainland. Meanwhile, we could see in practice (but unfortunately not enjoy in person ) some of the leisure activities that the area offered.

 

 

We arrived back a bit tired, but quite satisfied in many senses. Theseare the words our pupils used to describe their feelings at the end of the day:

 

Incredible, impacting, freedom, marvellous, slowness, fascinating, amusing, lovely, exciting, tiredness, quickness, fun, different, quietness...

 

Emili Miralles

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