A few of us went to the Hermanus Public Library to give an educational shark talk to some children. Their school holidays were coming to a close and it was a great opportunity for us Shark Academy interns to practice presenting.
Geared with a PowerPoint and props, Jess dove into presenting to the 40-odd children in attendance. The kids were extremely interested in the talk. We were shocked to discover that some of them were already extremely knowledgeable about sharks. Laila and I stood on the side holding in our laughter as one young boy continued to steal Jess’ talking points before she even had a chance to reach the slide. A young girl also joined in on the thievery by stealing the show to talk all about cookie cutter sharks, saying almost every fact Jess had planned to speak on.
However, not all the children were so knowledgeable. One young boy of maybe 5 or 6 was completely obsessed with “baboon sharks”, a shark none of us were familiar with. Much to our surprise, we discovered the shark he was referring to for almost the entirety of our hour-long presentation was in fact the bamboo shark. That’s still not very helpful because I know nothing about that shark either.
Overall, the educational shark talk went extremely well and the children were super interactive. It was really amazing to get a glimpse of the future generation of scientists and conservationists. I really hope that little boy who knew everything carries on learning and never loses his passion for the ocean.
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