Mita and the Mysterious Pearl

Do you think it is only the fish that swim in the sea? Well, do you know these new fish species? The plastic bottle fish, packaging fish, nylon bag fish and cigarette butt fish… Too numerous to be counted… They swim very well, too. They do not want to go out of the water once they jump into the sea. I mean, even if you call the sabanejewia aurata from sweet waters, they cannot clean it up. It is that much polluted. In this story, the little submarine Mita meets one of them while looking for the treasure. Can you guess what will happen to her? Theme: Sharing the planet Concepts and Key Words: NATURE AND UNIVERSE, discovery, friendship, sea animals, protecting the environment, protecting the nature, problem solving Attitudes and Values: Curiosity, respect, love, responsibility Profile Features: Inquirer, caring KİTAPTAN Little seahorse Mita’s favorite things were making bubbles in the water, gliding over corals, hanging onto the algae and playing with her best friends squid Fito and starfish Shinny. Mita, who got up early in the morning, would take her breath with her friend Fito in the first light of the day. She was younger than Fito, but they loved spending time together. Mita would share her colorful dreams with Fito, and Fito would ink for Mita, and they would paint together for hours. *** Then the two friends would start treasure hunting. They collected shells, shark teeth, crushed coral, and colored stones from the depths. Mita, a very good treasure hunter, even found a pearl once. *** From that day on, Mita began to live in a plastic bottle. But she could neither play with anyone, paint nor hug anyone anymore. She was left there alone, all alone. Fito and Shinny were also alone because their closest friend could no longer play with them. A plastic bottle that came between them and Mita had turned their lives upside down. One day, as Mita was trying to get around inside the bottle, she started to be dragged by an oncoming wave. Although her friends wanted to catch up by swimming, they could not resist the wave. Mita was getting farther and farther away, swept away by the current. She found herself on the beach as the wave hit the shore, but she was still inside the plastic bottle. *** She felt lucky to have met these people and to be still alive despite the dangerous mounds in the sea. Would she ever see the child again?“I wish I could introduce him to Shinny one day,” she thought. It suddenly occurred to her that her family and friends might have been very curious about her, and she hurried off. She had to tell everyone about the bottles she saw on the shore, waiting like a trap. She started swimming towards the house at full speed in the seas she knew. Mita could not see or hear, but the boy waved to her from behind. “Goodbye, little seahorse. Take care of yourself,” he whispered. After looking at the sea for a long time, the boy bent down, collected the plastic bottles one by one and walked away. *** A truckload of plastic enters the seas every minute. One million seabirds and 100,000 cetaceans die every year because of plastics thrown into the seas. Most animals that eat plastic thrown into the sea die of starvation because they cannot digest it. Every minute, 2 million plastic bags and 1 million plastic bottles are used in the world.