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Continuing-Education

Dive Against Debris

eLearning covers self-study material. Your dive shop will charge training fees.

About the Course

Make a difference on every dive by activating your inner citizen scientist. During the Dive Against Debris® Diver Specialty course, you’ll learn how ocean plastic and trash cleanups not only keep your local dive sites healthier, but also how to contribute to a global database that documents our planet’s marine debris problem. Under the guidance of your instructor, you’ll participate in a Dive Against Debris survey and turn your passion for the underwater world into real action.

Join the PADI Torchbearertm movement of divers protecting our ocean planet and making every dive count.

Available Languages
Take This Course If You Want to
  • Become a citizen scientist for marine conservation
  • Learn how you can truly make a difference for our oceans
  • Keep your local dive sites clean from ocean plastic and debris
Learn How to
  • Identify which objects should and shouldn’t be removed from the ocean
  • Conduct a survey: Sort, record and report the marine debris you collect
  • Contribute to PADI AWARE Foundation’s global database

How to Earn your Scuba Diving Certification

Complete Dive Against Debris eLearning, then make a Dive Against Debris survey dive, during which you’ll collect marine debris underwater. After your dive, you’ll weigh, sort, record, dispose of and report your marine debris to the PADI AWARE Foundation™ database.

Mobile phone in plane
Independent Study

1
PADI eLearning®

PADI eLearning makes it easy to fit scuba lessons into your busy schedule. Complete the independent study part of your course whenever, wherever it's convenient for you.

Work at your own pace, online or offline, using a computer or mobile device. Connect with your instructor for in-water training, or whenever you have a question.

  • eLearning time commitment: 2-4 hours
Instructor in pool
At The Dive Shop

2
With Your Instructor

You'll plan and execute a dive with a buddy to remove underwater marine debris while demonstrating appropriate judgment as to which objects should and shouldn’t be removed from the ocean. After the dive, you’ll conduct a survey by recording and reporting your Dive Against Debris data.
  • Prerequisites: PADI (Junior) Open Water Diver, PADI Freedivertm or PADI Advanced Mermaidtm (or qualifying certification)
  • Total time commitment: 1 day
  • Minimum age: 10

More Info

 
Gifting and Sharing Courses

Want to share the experience or give the gift of endless adventure? You can now purchase PADI eLearning® and share it with a recipient of your choice! Whether you are purchasing the course as a gift or need to assign the it to family members – it’s super easy.

  1. Once you purchase your eLearning course, you can log-in to your PADI account to access the course.
  2. From your Dashboard go to Student Details and Manage Your Courses.
  3. You can then decide to Start the eLearning yourself or ‘Share the course’.
  4. To share the course, simply click on ‘Share the Course’ and enter the email address of the recipient you wish to share the course with.
  5. The recipient will receive an email to create or log-in to their PADI Account to start the course.
 
Medical Requirements

Scuba diving requires a minimum level of health and fitness. Chronic health conditions, certain medications and/or recent surgery may require you to get written approval from a physician before diving.

Avoid disappointment, download and review the Diver Medical form to ensure you won’t need a physician’s approval to dive before enrolling in a scuba course. Instructors, divemasters and dive shop staff are not physicians and should not be asked for medical advice; only medical professionals can give medical clearance to dive.

If you (or your physician) have questions about medical fitness to dive, contact the experts at Divers Alert Network (DAN).

 
Prerequisites & Minimum Age
  • Prerequisites: PADI (Junior) Open Water Diver, PADI Freediver or PADI Advanced Mermaid (or qualifying certification)
  • Minimum age: 10 years or older
 
Choosing a Dive Shop

There are three parts to certification: knowledge development, skill practice, and open water dives. You can complete all three parts locally, on holiday, or split between the two.

Choose a dive shop close to home to:

  • Support your local diving community
  • Meet other divers in your area
  • Learn about your local ecosystem

Choose a dive shop away from home if you:

  • Plan to travel to a dive destination on holiday
  • Like to meet new people when travelling
  • Have the time to complete your course while on vacation

If you're not ready to try diving locally, but want to support your local dive shop, you can complete eLearning and portions of the course close to home, then complete the rest of the course while travelling. Contact your local PADI Dive Shop and ask about an open water referral.

TIP: Complete PADI Open Water eLearning before travel to minimize the amount of time you spend studying while on vacation.

 
Other Costs & Equipment

This course requires both knowledge development and inwater training for certification. When you purchase a PADI eLearning course from our website, the cost covers the knowledge development portion only.

There will be an additional cost to complete your certification with a PADI Instructor. The cost depends on class size, location, and whether or not you need to rent equipment.

  • Most dive shops require students to provide their own mask, fins and snorkel. If you already own a mask, snorkel and/or fins, bring them to your instructor before your first inwater session. Some snorkeling masks and fins are inadequate for scuba diving.
  • Basic scuba gear, including a regulator, buoyancy control device (BCD), dive computer and cylinder, may or may not be included with the inwater training cost.
  • You may also need to buy or rent exposure protection (wetsuit or drysuit) depending on the diving environment.

  • Contact your PADI Dive Center or Resort for more information and pricing.

 
Time Commitment
  • eLearning time commitment: 2-4 hours
  • Entire course: 1-2 days
 
Available Languages

Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, French, English.

For information on other available languages please contact your PADI Dive Center.

 
System Requirements

PADI's online courses are designed to work on the browsers listed below. For the best experience, make sure your browser is up-to-date.

  • Chrome
  • Safari
  • Edge
  • Firefox

If you plan to be somewhere without internet access, use the PADI Training app to download course content and study offline. Content can be downloaded in small sections with a total file size of approximately 1.10 GB. When you get back online, upload your progress so you can resume your training right where you left off.

The PADI Training app is available for Android™ and Apple® iOS devices. For the ideal experience, devices should be no more than three models old and running with the most current OS (operating system).

 
After this course

The Dive Against Debris Diver Specialty course dive may count toward your Advanced Open Water Diver certification – ask your instructor about earning credit.

Each AWARE or PADI Specialty you complete gets you one step closer to earning the elite Master Scuba Diver™  rating.

Check out more AWARE Specialty courses – Coral Reef Conservation, Shark Conservation Diver and PADI AWARETM Specialist.

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