Taking the Year 1/2 and 3 classes down to the beach opened their eyes into another world through the knowledge of Jo Marks and resources from the Reef Guardian Program. Students explored the intertidal zone discovering the wealth of marine life hidden in the sand and rocks. The whole time you would be there, cries of 'Look what I have found!' and students would come running up to pull you along to show a tiny hermit crab or different shell types or marine creatures and we would try and identify them for their data sheets.
We were very lucky to have Leanne Lance from MINT and Ashlee who is involved with Carapace at JCU give a talk to the Year 4 students about the turtle life cycles and nesting sites around Magnetic Island and show us where nests have been at Nelly Bay beach.
Jo Marks also took the Year 5 and 6 students to study Gustav Creek using our Creekwatch resources to analyse and measure water quality, look for the macroinvertebrates discovering Water striders, water mites, blood worms, shrimps and guppies.
The week finale was when the Year 6 peer support leaders led students to create amazing sand sculptures of turtles, starfish and dolphins on the beach. Then the whole school celebrated our ocean singing and dancing with the Cuban musicians and dancers from the Afrekete Festival.