MARINE SCIENCE, SEMARANG – The Department of Marine Sciences, Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Sciences (FPIK) Diponegoro University (Undip) held the Summer Course Tropical Ecodive, an activity to introduce tropical marine ecosystems, especially coral reef ecosystems and other coastal ecosystems. FPIK Undip equips participants to master SCUBA diving.
This annual program was held in the Semarang area and Karimunjawa waters, Jepara Regency on 12-22 August 2023. This program, which was originally 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 foreign students from Kwansei Gakuin University, Hyogo, Japan and 25 domestic students with foreign resource person Prof. Hideki Hashimoto and Prof. Hidetoshi Sato.
High enthusiasm was shown by participants from Kwansei Gakuin University, Hyogo, Japan. This 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, until this year there were 10 participants consisting of 8 men and 3 women,” he said, Wednesday (16/8/2023).
Photo: Diving activities in Karimunjawa waters, Jepara.
The summer course activities were opened by the Dean of FPIK 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. “Interesting material, interactive presentations and in-depth discussions about marine conservation were delivered by experts from FPIK Undip,” she 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. (Source: undip.ac.id)