Ocean Life visits Prep

Recently, Prep had a visit from Richard at Ocean Life Education to teach us about the human impact on our oceans and sea-life. It was an AMAZING experience!

Not only did we have the chance to consider what we can do to help our beach environments and sea creatures, but we also got to push personal sensory boundaries by TOUCHING a couple of these precious beings. We felt squishy things - like tropical and black sea cucumbers, hard and ‘bony’ things - like sea stars, and spiky things - like a sea anemone. Bob the baby brown-banded bamboo shark (try saying that quickly) was a real hit and, although we didn’t get to touch him, it was so interesting to see a real shark up close and personal. We also got to hold Bob’s egg (yes, a shark egg) and felt its rubbery surface.

Here are some facts we now know about ocean life:

“Turtles Sleep in a black hole.” - Nikau

“Sea turtles stay in the water and eat jellyfish.”-Halliday

“Tropical sea cucumbers have a poisonous tree on their body so they can protect themselves.”- Rose

“Even a baby shark can have a hard and hurtful bite.”-Sam

“Sea stars pull their tummy in and it comes out their mouth and catches the food.”- Locky

“Starfish are not fish at all, they are sea stars.”-Ash

“When a turtle eats a plastic bag, it starts floating up and then it can’t eat any more food and then it dies.”- Lenny