Upwelling Ocean Seafood Education Comes to Yueming Elementary School: Teaching Kids to Eat Fish with Bones, Peel Shrimp, and Eat Crab

In the classroom, the children sit upright on their chairs, staring intently at the red creatures in front of them. They have to twist off the head, pull off the legs, and remove the shell, their focused expressions like they are performing surgery. Before long, the children's faces break into smiles: "Teacher, look quick, I've peeled my shrimp!" This is the scene in a classroom at Yueming Elementary School in Yilan. It is not just fresh shrimp; in the weeks to follow, the nutritious lunches will also feature seafood such as mackerel, cutlassfish (ribbonfish), and crab.

Seafood education has gradually gained attention in the country, but constrained by nutritious lunch budgets, seafood hygiene and safety, and parents' worries about their children swallowing fish bones, nutritious lunches have never featured seafood with bones or shells. Upwelling Ocean has partnered with Yueming Elementary School to launch a series of seafood education programs, serving shrimp and even crab in the nutritious lunches, with the ultimate goal of helping children "learn to eat a whole fish, bones and all."