Big Blue Future

This collections supports the House of Science resource kit Big Blue Future, which has the overarching theme of "Understanding the ocean is essential to protecting our planet."
(https://houseofscience.nz/)

Resources are grouped according to the kit's student activities. Please refer to the notes for the science ideas and concepts that underlie the activities.

Marine ecosystems

An ecosystem is made up of animals, plants and bacteria as well as the physical and chemical environment they live in.

All ecosystems require energy from an external source – this is usually the Sun. Plants need sunlight to photosynthesise and produce glucose, providing an energy source for other organisms.

The living organisms in an ecosystem can be described as producers, consumers and decomposers.

Producers are the green plants, which make their own food through photosynthesis.

Consumers are animals who get their energy by eating other organisms: herbivores eat plants, carnivores eat herbivores or other carnivores, and omnivores eat both plants and animals.

Decomposers (including bacteria, fungi, and some plants and animals) break down dead plants and animals into organic materials and recycle the nutrients.

Marine food webs - who is eating whom?

Food webs illustrate the networks of feeding relationships between organisms that live in a particular area. All food webs are made up of producers, consumers and decomposers.

Fish puzzles (adaptation)

Adaptation is an evolutionary process whereby an organism becomes increasingly well-suited to living in a particular habitat. Marine organisms have adapted to a great diversity of habitats and distinctive environmental conditions.

Ecosystem services

Mussels - like turtles - are marine guardians.

Ecosystem services are the benefits ecosystems provide for the environment and people. These include services such as cleaning and filtering sea water - a job that mussels do well!

Fishy businesses

Can you believe that Aotearoa's seafood industry had a total export earning of $2 billion in 2020?

Aotearoa's exclusive economic zone extends 200 nautical miles (370 km) beyond our offshore islands, giving the country a zone of 4 million square kilometres, meaning that approximately 93% of New Zealand is actually under water!

That is a huge area, but we still need to consider sustainability and think about fishing methods.

Fortunately, Aotearoa has some innovative ideas that will help to protect fish species and fish stocks.

Plastic Soup

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Plastic debris is the most abundant form of marine litter.

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Human activities - such as plastic litter - can have impacts on Earth's systems in ways we don't anticipate or are not aware of until other changes become evident.

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The Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge is working to track where plastics go when they get dumped in the the coastal waters around Aotearoa.

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There are citizen science projects that schools can join, which help add to our knowledge of marine litter and enable students to take action.