Students at a school in Murcia are taught on a beach as part of an educational program.
After a year of distance learning and physical education with the physical presence of students and always under the observance of social distance measures, a school in the region of Murcia, Spain, takes classes to the beach in an effort to combine fresh air with a new method teaching.
Outside the “Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente” school, students wearing their protective masks sit in front of a portable blackboard in rows of green desks placed at the necessary distances from each other on the sandy beaches of the so-called Playa de los Nietos ).
As English teacher Juan Francisco Martinez puts it: “It’s safe, the kids have a lot of fun . They do not forget what they learn here “. The courses are part of a broader project called “Clean Air”, which aims to create a better air quality for children during the COVID-19 pandemic through outdoor teaching.
The teachers start preparing the beach at 08:00. Eight classes take part in the twenty-minute lessons and the groups of students take turns at different parts of the beach. The children in the school are aged from three to 12 years old and remain in their “classroom bubble”. No cases of coronavirus have been reported so far.
“I really like going to the beach! “I prefer to be on the beach because I feel more relaxed and comfortable,” says 9-year-old Antonio Fernandez. 10-year-old Luth also shares this view: “This is very good because I am with my friends, I am on the beach, I love the beach, in the summer I always come here to swim every day and I love the sand.”
And it is not just the beach area. Members of an association of locals dressed as legionnaires to “teach” Roman history to students, while local fishermen showed them their nets to find out where their food came from. “Fishermen taught the students how to fish … how they were able to provide us with food during the pandemic,” adds principal Alfonso Vera.
