Marine Debris Blog Posts

I took in a deep breath then let it out quickly as I approached the group of middle schoolers gathered around a single desk.

I blurted out, “Apa kabar?” One of my few memorized Bahasa Indonesia greetings.

Half a dozen young faces turned towards me.  There was a brief pause before they shrilly responded,

“Biiiiiaaak!!” and promptly collapsed into a pile of laughter.

I grinned and moved into the circle to check on their progress.  The students were hand drawing a bar graph depicting the different types of marine debris we had surveyed on a nearby beach.  We didn’t share a language, but we could communicate through our data.