PADI, the Professional Association of Scuba Instructors, sets the minimum age for kids going scuba diving to eight years. The PADI Seal Team Program is designed for young divers who are ready to experience not only breathing under water. The five so called Aqua Missions in part one of this Program guides the young scuba diver through action packed fun-dives where they learn the basic skills of scuba diving in the safe environment of a swimming pool.

All these 5 Aqua Missions are conducted and supervised by certified PADI Open Water Scuba Instructors (OWSI). The OWSI guides the kids (also called PADI seals) patiently through essential skills like underwater mask clearing, regulator recovery and several buoyancy control skills.

But the Missions do not stop there. During this Aqua Missions the PADI Seals learn also basic navigation, how to handle underwater lights and gain knowledge about underwater photography.

After accomplishing the first five missions, kids can move on to the second part of the program where the young diver reinforce the skills of the first part and learn more skills which will prepare them in a fun way towards their full Junior Open Water certification (minimum age for JOWD is 10 years). The PADI Seals reach the Master Seal Team Member-Status after completing 10 additional Special Missions. While going through the full program the Kids learn all Skills required for the PADI Junior Open Water certification.

The PADI Seal Team Program also helps children to learn being responsible and teaches kids about the aquatic environment. This program is limited to a swimming-pool to keep them in a safe environment.

The whole program combines education with fun under water. PADI Seals use standard scuba equipment adjusted to their sizes. Before enrolling in the Seal Team Program, kids get a colorful crewpak which includes a DVD, an activity book with all missions and logbook pages.

Participants need to be 8 years old at the beginning of the program. When turning 10, kids can go on and complete the PADI Junior Open Water certification.