Department of Marine Sciences, Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Sciences (FPIK) Diponegoro University (Undip) held a Summer Course Tropical Ecodive, an activity to introduce tropical marine ecosystems, especially coral reef ecosystems and other coastal ecosystems. FPIK Undip equipped participants to master SCUBA diving.
This annual program was held in the Semarang area and Karimunjawa waters, Jepara Regency, on August 12-22, 2023.
This program, which was initially labeled Introduction to Scientific Diving, was initiated in 2015, then implemented for the first time in 2016 and lasted until 2019. Activities were stopped in 2020-2022 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and this year, it started again. The main participants were 10 international students from Kwansei Gakuin University, Hyogo, Japan, and 25 domestic students with foreign resource persons, namely Prof. Hideki Hashimoto and Prof. Hidetoshi Sato.
Participants from Kwansei Gakuin University, Hyogo, Japan, showed high enthusiasm. The enthusiasm can be seen from the number of activity participants, which continues to increase from year to year. The manager of this summer course program, Prof. Munasik, said that in 2016, the number of participants was 4 people; in 2017, it increased to 7 people.
“In 2018 and 2019, there were 8 and 6 participants, but until this year, there were 10 participants, consisting of 8 men and 3 women,” he said Wednesday (16/8/2023).
The summer course activities were opened by the Dean of FPIK Undip, Prof. Ir. Tri Winarni Agustini, M.Sc, Ph.D. continued with the delivery of material from several Professors and senior lecturers at FPIK Undip regarding marine flora and fauna, introduction to coral reef ecosystems and (mangrove) ecosystems and also SCUBA diving theory.
“Experts delivered interesting material, interactive presentations and in-depth discussions about marine conservation from FPIK Undip,” he said.
Next, participants take part in diving training in the Karimunjawa Islands guided by experienced diving instructors.
“The hope is that students will be introduced to the beautiful views of various types of coral reefs, abundant tropical marine life, stunning beauty under the sea and the beauty of the beaches of the small islands of Karimunjawa,” said Prof. Munasik.
One of the foreign speakers, Prof. Hideki Hashimoto, stated that Karimunjawa was chosen for the summer course because it has the best underwater beauty in Javanese sea waters with a composition of coral types that is different from Japanese waters.
