Tag Archives: Habitats

Year 6 Science Incursions in Brisbane

 

Open Ocean Habitat

Ocean Life Education’s Habitats Program

Ocean Life Education’s Habitats – Physical Conditions program elevates Year 6 students’ understanding of habitats by focusing on marine environments. Students will explore the specific physical conditions required for marine animals to survive and thrive. They will learn how changes to these conditions can negatively affect marine life, leading to poor health or even death. The program encourages discussions on strategies to prevent these harmful impacts in the future.

During our Habitats incursions, students will delve into a diverse range of physical conditions, including:

  • Temperature
  • Salinity
  • Light
  • Nutrients
  • Current flow
  • Waves
  • Turbidity
  • Depth
Coral Habitat

The Great Barrier Reef

Habitats Case Study: The Great Barrier Reef, Queensland

Our focus will be on Queensland’s coral reef habitat, particularly the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest fringing reef, located right at our doorstep. As one of the seven natural wonders of the world, it is essential to understand the physical conditions necessary for its survival so we can work to preserve it for the future.

What is Coral?

coral polyps

coral polyps

Though corals resemble plants on the ocean floor, they are actually marine animals related to jellyfish and sea anemones. Corals belong to the Cnidaria group, known for their stinging tentacles.

These invertebrates are colonial organisms, meaning many individuals live and grow connected in colonies. The Great Barrier Reef hosts around six hundred coral species which are made up of polyps, clear tube-like structures with stinging tentacles used for catching prey and defence.

Coral Reef Habitat – Necessities to Thrive

Temperature: Corals thrive in warm tropical waters, ideally between 23–29°C.

Salinity: They prefer salty conditions with salinity levels between 32–42 ppt.

Light: Sunlight is crucial for coral survival, as symbiotic algae within them need to photosynthesize to produce food.

Nutrients: Low nutrient levels are important to prevent smothering; calcium is essential for building coral skeletons.

Current Flow: Currents bring food, calcium, and disperse sediment, aiding in photosynthesis and coral spawn distribution.

Waves: Waves provide oxygen, food, and prevent sediment buildup on corals.

Turbidity: Low turbidity ensures sunlight penetration, crucial for coral survival.

Depth: Corals thrive in shallow waters, up to 70 meters, but prefer depths between the surface and 30 meters for optimal sunlight.

Human Impact

Coral Bleaching

Students will explore how human activities have altered the reef’s physical habitat and its effects on marine life. They will also discuss strategies to minimize negative impacts on the reef now and in the future.

Coral Bleaching

Climate change has raised water temperatures, especially in the northern Great Barrier Reef, surpassing 29°C and causing coral bleaching. Discussions will cover human actions like carbon pollution from cars and factories that accelerate climate change. Students will learn about coral bleaching, its causes, and potential prevention measures.

Land Clearing

The removal of trees and vegetation near coastal and river areas increases soil erosion, leading to sediment washing into oceans. This sediment smothers and kills coral. Students will investigate the effects of land clearing on marine environments.

Extension to Human Impact on the Ocean

Other human activities like plastic pollution and the use of shark nets and baited drum lines for shark control will be discussed. Students will learn about plastic’s harmful effects on marine life, particularly sea turtles.

The use of shark nets and drum lines since 1962, which results in unnecessary harm to marine animals, will be debated. The discussion will focus on modern, more effective technologies for protecting humans and marine life at beaches.

Ocean Life Education Habitats – 3 Minute VideoHabitats Short Video 

In this short film, Ocean Life Education’s Director of Education, Richard Coward, highlights key Habitats learning points using our marine animals as examples. It’s a great precursor to an incursion, which can be watched with students as a quick taster and talking point in advance of our visit.

A Note About Year 6 Curriculum Science

This incursion aligns with the Australian Curriculum content description ‘Science Understanding’ under the sub strand of ‘Biological Science’ for year 6’…

The growth and survival of living things are affected by physical conditions of their environment. 

Creating Ocean Advocates

At Ocean Life Education, we believe people protect what they know and love. Our mission is to inspire a deep connection to the ocean in children through engaging science incursions. By creating hands-on, memorable experiences, we aim to spark a lifelong passion for marine conservation and the ocean’s wonders.

 

Useful links

Overview of Marine Habitats

Habitats Fact Sheets

Other Primary Resources

Our Primary Incursions

 

Recent Blogs

Year 7 – Habitats

Year 3 – Life Cycles

Year 1 – Habitats

Our Primary Incursions

Here’s a link to our other news

Year 1 Science Incursions in Brisbane

 

habitat incursions

 

Ocean Life Education’s Habitats Program

One of Ocean Life Educations most popular programs is our Habitats Program, which focuses on curriculum learning for students in Prep and Year One. It’s a wonderful interactive based learning experience that focuses on how living things have a few basic needs to survive.

Read on to find out more about our year 1 science incursions in Brisbane…

A Voyage of Discovery

Students discover what a habitat is and that in order for an area to be a suitable habitat for an animal, it needs to provide the fundamental elements: food, water, shelter, air and oxygen.

brisbane incursionsExploring a Diverse Range of Habitats

Key habitat areas explored are rocky shores, sandy beaches, mangroves, sea grass beds, coral reefs, and the open ocean.

Find out more about diverse ocean habitats here.

 

How Ocean Animals Suit their Habitat

Students will discover that animals vary greatly, coming in different shapes and sizes, therefore requiring different types of habitat areas. They will find out through interaction, that our live display animals may live in one or more of these habitat areas and why.

This is a fun and exhilarating way for students to grasp all the key concepts about living things and their habitat.

Helping you Plan your Incursion

In the planning stages, we work with schools and home school centres to ensure your needs are met, and that we are focusing on what’s relevant to your teaching goals. If you have a special area of interest, we will concentrate on that.

Then, on the day of the incursion, our enthusiastic Marine Educators deliver highly educational, fun and engaging incursion that children will remember for a lifetime.

Our Primary Programs

Building Foundational Science Knowledge

These incursions will provide a dynamic and engaging way for Year 1 and Prep students to build foundational knowledge in science, fostering curiosity and a deeper appreciation for the natural world and imprinting a sense of ownership for its wellbeing.

Imprinting a Love of the Ocean

We stand by the statement that you ‘protect what you know and love’ and believe that teaching children about the ocean will help create environmental advocates of the future.

Our whole crew is passionate about the ocean, and we think this is very apparent during our science incursions and what makes the learning experience with Ocean Life Education very special indeed.

 

 

 

Find out about our Ocean Habitats Excursions

Learn about wetland habitats here

A Note About Year 1 Curriculum Science: Biological Science

Our incursions sit under the Australian Curriculum unit ‘Science Understanding’ and under the sub strand of ‘Biological Science’.

Understanding Sciences

AC9S1U01

Identify the basic needs of plants and animals including air, water, food or shelter, and describe how the places they live meet those needs.

Our Primary Incursions

Here’s a link to our other news

And a link to our programs

Ocean Life Education – School Incursions

Engage Kids with Sharks

online sharks course

Most children (and adults!) are naturally fascinated by sharks, either through sheer awe and wonder or by misguided fear. So, it’s no surprise that we can engage kids with sharks to learn a whole range of curriculum topics, without them even realising!

Ocean Life Education has developed a range of FREE online shark teaching resources and an online shark course to provide kids, schools and teachers with engaging ways to learn about sharks.

Why Are Kids Fascinated by Sharks?

shark anatomy and adaptation

shark anatomy – amazing sharks online course

Unfortunately, kid’s interest in sharks is often fuelled by exaggerated media stories and scary films, but it’s sharks’ appearance, immense power and ability to hunt that really grab their attention.

Incredibly, sharks have been around for at least 450 million years (since before the dinosaurs). A major reason why sharks have outlasted so many other animals, and a key reason why we are so fascinated by sharks, is their incredible anatomy, which is adapted to hunt and to survive.

 

 

Teaching Kids About Sharks Helps Protect Sharks and The Ocean

sharks & natural selection

sharks & natural selection

As APEX predators, sharks sit at the top of the food chain and help control the numbers of animals below them in the food web, thus maintaining the balance of life in their marine habitat. By controlling populations of large and mid-sized predators, sharks allow smaller fish to thrive, ensuring healthy ecosystems with a diverse range of species and competitors. Take sharks out of the food chain and the whole structure could collapse.

As we depend on healthy oceans for around 70% of the air that we breath, as well as for a host of other things such as food to eat, it is in our interest to minimise human impact and protect animals that protect our ocean.

 

Curriculum Themes and Sharks

Through the fascinating topic of sharks, kids can learn a host of curriculum themes such as adaptation, habitats, human impact, food webs, natural selection and classification. Studying the curriculum, while being thoroughly engrossed in the subject matter, makes the process of learning all the more enjoyable and inspiring.

Learning Enrichment and Sharks

Often children who need extra support within learning enrichment respond really well to curriculum-based learning which is based around their own topic of interest. That’s where teaching ‘Sharks’ can be a really useful tool to stimulate interest and hook children in.

 

Sharks Course for Kids & Shark Teaching Resources 

 

Ocean Life Education has created a host of engaging FREE shark teaching resources and activities: videos, sharks factAmazing sharks sheets & infographics, shark worksheets, shark activities, shark quizzes and an online shark course for kids (and adults!), with the aim of promoting understanding of sharks. All can be used as engaging shark teaching resources for educators, as well as fun shark activities for kids.

Online Sharks Course for Kids

Amazing Sharks Certificate

Amazing Sharks Certificate

Become a Shark Legend with Ocean Life Education’s Amazing Sharks online course – learn the facts, bust the myths and help protect these totally awesome creatures through a fun and interactive online shark course. Personalised shark legend achievement certificate awarded on completion. Suits Age 7+.

We hope you enjoy our resources and course and are inspired to want to protect amazing sharks too.

Want to know more?

Link – ONLINE SHARKS COURSE

Link – SHARK RESOURCES

Blog – Should We Protect Sharks?

5 Awesome Shark Facts

  • Sharks have been around since before the dinosaurs.
  • Sharks are literally built to hunt.
  • Sharks can produce 30,000 teeth in a lifetime.
  • Humans depend on sharks.
  • You have more chance of being killed by a cow than a shark!

5 Easy Ways to Help Protect Sharks

Ocean Habitats

Oceans support an immense diversity of life and ecosystems. From the warm tropical waters of the Caribbean to the freezing polar regions (and from tiny zooplankton to blue whales!), a staggering range of animals, plants and other life forms call the ocean their home. These ocean habitats (or marine habitats) provide everything needed for survival – food, shelter, water and oxygen. They need to be healthy in order to support the diversity of life within them and contribute to a healthy ocean, which provides us with many things including food, oxygen, jobs and a whole heap of fun water-based activities.

 

Watch our Habitats video

Types of Ocean Habitat

Marine habitats are divided into two main zonescoastal habitat and open ocean habitat. Within these habitats, there are numerous sub-habitats.

Coastal Habitats

Coastal HabitatsThe coastal habitat is the region from the shoreline out to the continental shelf. Most marine creatures live in coastal habitat, although it only makes up seven percent of the ocean.

Coastal habitats include intertidal zones (constantly exposed and covered by the ocean’s tides). These include:

Rocky shore, mangrove, mudflats, estuaries, kelp forest, sea grass, sandy shores/beach and coral reefs – see below for more about these.

 

Open Ocean Habitats

Open Ocean HabitatsOpen ocean habitats are found beyond the continental shelf. This is the deep ocean. Open ocean habitats are divided into layers which include: surface waters, the deep sea, and the ocean floor.

It is estimated that about 10 percent of marine species live in the open ocean. They tend to be the largest and fastest, such as whales and sharks, or fish that swim in schools. Tiny marine life such as plankton also inhabit this zone, which is often referred to as the pelagic zone – this simply means open ocean in Greek.

Food chains can be found in the open ocean: small bait fish eat plankton, bigger fish eat the bait fish, and sharks and some whales eat the bigger fish. Some whale species eat tiny plankton. In fact, the largest creature on earth, the blue whale, eats tiny plankton.

Some animals are able to travel to great depths but also spend much of their time close to the surface. The sperm whale can dive kilometers deep into the ocean, yet spends most of its time near the surface. Water temperatures vary greatly in this zone with the water being warmed by the sun near the surface and very cold deep down.

 

Coral Reef Habitat

Coral reef habitat consists of many single-living organisms (polyps) living together as one large mass. It comes in many different shapes and forms. Coral reefs are responsible for a huge proportion of the earth’s biodiversity with an estimated 25 percent of all marine species living in and around them.

Corals live with algae in a type of relationship called symbiosis. This is where two different species of organism interact or cooperate with each other. The algae, called zooxanthellae, live inside corals where they are protected by the coral’s tough outer shell. In return, the algae provide food for their host that they produce by the process of photosynthesis. Zooxanthellae is also responsible for the striking colours we often see in corals. Without these algae, corals become transparent, exposing their white skeleton. This is known as coral bleaching.

Coral reefs provide protection and are home to millions of marine creatures (as well as algae). They also act as nurseries for juvenile creatures and act as a barrier protecting land foreshores (the coastline), seagrass and other marine vegetation. So, in effect, they protect our home (habitat) too!

Coral is an essential part of the food chain and ecosystems, without it marine animals would perish – from sharks right down to the smallest algae.

Human Impact on Coral Reef Habitat

In order to thrive and support a healthy ecosystem, coral reef requires a moderate ocean temperature and clean water. Climate change is resulting in ocean temperatures rising and in many regions, the ocean is polluted. This is worrying scientists and citizens around the world. We can all play a part in helping to protect our oceans by doing simple things such as disposing of plastics carefully. Click here to find out how else you can help the ocean.

 

Mangrove Habitat

Mangroves are tough trees and shrubs that live in the coastal intertidal zone where they are able to survive in salty water. mangrove habitat They form extremely important habitats, providing protection for millions of marine animals as well as filtering and cleaning the water and the air, and protecting land from erosion.

Here are just a few of the benefits of mangrove habitat:

-Stabilize the coastline
-Protect water and air quality
-Reduce coastal flooding
-Provide habitat for fish
-Protect wildlife species
-Protect young fish from predators
-Serve as a nesting area for birds
-Protect species that humans rely on as a food source. It is estimated that 75% of commercial food caught has a direct link to mangroves!

Animals Commonly Found in Mangroves in Australia

Mud crabs, prawns, fiddler crabs, mangrove snails, molluscs and many species of fish, most common being the Mangrove Jack, Bream, Moses Perch, Whiting, Mullet & Flathead.

Wading birds: herons, pelicans, cormorants, curlews & egrets,

 

Rocky Shore Habitat

The rocky shore habitat comprises many microenvironments and ecosystems providing safe living habitat for a large diversity of rocky shore habitat animals, including:

Molluscs: Oysters, limpets, chitons, barnacles, crustaceans: crabs, prawns, lobsters, echinoderms: sea Stars, sea cucumbers, sea urchins, many species of fish and some dangerous animals such as the blue-ringed octopus and the cone shell!

The rocky shore also acts as a nursery, protecting juvenile animals and enabling them to grow before venturing out to deeper, less protective areas of the ocean.

The food chain system of rocky shore environments can be divided into three groups: the producers, the grazers and the scavengers/predators.

Producers include algae and plankton which both produce energy through photosynthesis. They are at the bottom of the food chain. The grazers feed on the producers and include creatures such as mussels, limpets and sea cucumbers. Sea cucumbers are also scavengers as they sweep the sea floor for food, picking up small particles of both producers and grazers as they go. Crabs, fish, turtles, and even some species of shark, eat sea cucumbers – these are all examples of predators.

 

Sandy Beach Habitat

There are two main types of sand:

Mineral sand – weathered mineral rock)

Carbonate sand – weathered down rocks containing calcium from parts of sandy beach animals (eg. sea stars, coral fragments, bones of dolphins, whales & dugongs, sea urchins, crustacean & mollusc shells, fish & shark teeth).

Sandy Beach is an important food zone linking the ocean to the land. Many small creatures live in this habitat, including worms and millions of microorganisms. Sandy Beach is also an important habitat for turtles to nest in and home to mammals such as rats and reptiles like snakes and lizards.

This zone provides a buffer zone, protecting land vegetation from ocean movement, wind and rain. Gentle tides may deposit sand onto beaches, while strong water movement, such as a storm, may erode sand from beaches. This means that beaches are changing all the time.

 

Seagrass Habitat

Seagrass is mainly found growing from mud or rock in bays, estuaries and coastal waters, and reaches a depth of up to 60 metres. it is the only flowering plant in the world that can live underwater. People often confuse sea grass with seaweed but seagrasses have roots, stems and leaves and produce flowers, fruits and seeds – seaweed does not!

Seagrass is an important food source for large animals like turtles and dugongs as well as smaller creatures such as sea urchins and fish. It traps food to feed on and algae grow on its surface, providing food for water birds, molluscs and other dwellers. So, seagrass is an important energy pathway, supporting the food web in many ways.

Seagrass also acts as protection for juvenile animals that seek shelter in it.

Seagrass Habitat

Copyright: Wildlife Conservation Society

Queensland’s Marine Habitats

Habitats ReefQueensland’s stunning coastline comprises a wide range of marine habitats. These include sandy and rocky shores, mangroves, and coral reefs; with the largest reef of all, The Great Barrier Reef, located just off Queensland’s coast.

For more information on Queensland’s marine habitats, check out Ocean Life Education’s NEW Habitats video presented by our owner and Senior Marine Biologist, Richard Coward. Habitats video

To book a Habitats-themed incursion at your school of centre, go to our website:

Download FREE printable HABITATS FACT SHEETS

Primary programs & resources

 

Further Reading

Coral Bleaching