Comunicação “Adaptation of ‘Coasts for Kids’ animations: an exercise of cultural diversity in coastal communication”

A adaptação para português da séries de animações ‘Coasts for Kids’ deu origem à versão ‘O Litoral para crianças’. Por um lado, as versões são semelhantes, uma vez que os princípios científicos subjacentes são os mesmos, mas por outro, são diversas tendo em conta as muitas diferenças entre as zonas costeiras e o contexto cultural e educativo das crianças dos diferentes países.

Congresso: Commocean 2022 – 5th International Marine Science Communication Conference , 29 novembro – 2 dezembro 2022, Station Ifremer of Sète (França)

Título: Adaptation of ‘Coasts for Kids’ animations: an exercise of cultural diversity in coastal communication

Autores: Ana Matias, Irene Delgado-Fernandez, Susana Costas, Carlos Loureiro

Resumo:

Coasts for Kids’ (C4K) is a series of animations developed to engage children with the coast, celebrate its richness, communicate concepts of coastal geosciences, raise awareness to problems faced by coastal zones in a changing climate and to show what can be done to address current and future challenges. The original animations were developed in English and are targeted at Primary School children in the UK. C4K had contributions from coastal geomorphologists, physical geographers, coastal ecologists, and human geographers from Universities in the UK, Australia, Canada, Spain, France and Mexico. The series engagement strategy was to use identity and place-based elements. To create a sense of identity, episodes were narrated by school children aged 6-8 years old from the Merseyside area (Liverpool City Region, UK). Place-based identification was achieved by introducing coastal elements of the Liverpool Bay and mention the different locations where the child narrators live. References were made to playing and fun activities by the coast (both in the script and chosen photographs). Engaging elements were used throughout the animations, such as the inclusion of superheroes, the character ‘Mrs. Piggy’, onomatopoeia and interjection. While effective for the target audience, the use of place-based and identity elements, makes the series C4K less suitable for children from other countries. Therefore, developing a version for another country, let alone for another language, implies more than translation and instead a comprehensive adaptation is necessary. The adaptation of C4K for Portugal – ‘O Litoral para Crianças’ (LPC), required a number of tasks (not exhaustively): (1) adapting the script to Portuguese, including rewriting the episode about the coastal zone of Liverpool to the coastal zone of the Algarve (South Portugal), (2) substituting location maps, (3) collecting photographs of the coast of Portugal, (4) casting six children to narrate the episodes in off-voice, (5) working with the volunteer families for sound recording, (6) choosing acquiring illustration avatars, (7) choosing new music, (8) creating new content to support teachers and parents, in addition to (9) the technical work of sound editing and (10) reassembling the animations. As a result of the adaptation work, LPC closely resembles the main features of C4K, as underlying coastal science principles apply, but at the same time, it is diverse to account for the many differences between the coastal zones, the cultural and educational context of children in different countries. With the expectation that many more country-based versions of C4K will be developed, enriching the mosaic of cultural and geographical diversity, the collection C4K, LPC and other adaptations is therefore an exercise of cultural diversity in coastal communication.