New Zealand has approximately 300 estuaries. They are historically important cultural sites – Māori settlers valued estuaries as an important source of fish and shellfish, and European settlers ...
Throughout human existence we have relied on the oceans – for food, as a waste dump, for recreation, for economic opportunities and so on. However, it’s not only our activities in the marine ...
A habitat is the area where an organism or group of organisms live and breed. One habitat will be distinct from another due to its particular environmental conditions. However, habitats are not ...
In this activity, students discuss how a variety of everyday objects can serve as metaphors for the important characteristics and functions of estuaries. By the end of this activity, students ...
In this activity, students take on the role of a stakeholder in New Zealand fisheries. In their role, they decide whether they agree or disagree with the statement ‘there are plenty of fish in ...
In this activity, students place small stickers (tags) onto caught or newly emerged monarch butterflies and release them into the environment. The tag number, information about the butterfly and ...
This New Zealand-based citizen science project collects data about butterflies in our gardens, schools, parks and farms – any location in the country or on the outer islands. This annual event – ...
Be part of a worldwide movement and use Global Earth Challenge to submit or classify photos to help our planet’s environment and human health. Global Earth Challenge is a citizen science campaign ...
Come and visit Aotearoa New Zealand’s underwater world in this online citizen science project. Discover, count and identify unique fish species that live within our marine reserves ...
To most of us, one earthworm resembles another. Although earthworms do have common characteristics, species differ widely in their size, skin colour and in the roles they play in the soil ...
New Zealand is well known for its unique bird life. Our endemic birds evolved in an isolated, island environment. The arrival of people, the deliberate and accidental introduction of mammalian ...
In this recorded professional learning session, Shanthie Walker from DOC and Lyn Rogers explore why the whio/blue duck is so important to New Zealand. They use the Department of Conservation Whio ...
Andrew Swales and Weno Iti from NIWA take a core sample in an estuary in Kawhia. Sediment cores can show changes in estuarine ecology over hundreds of years, giving scientists an idea of the ...
Dr Candida Savage, from the University of Otago, talks about her research into the effect of land use change on coastal areas and the organisms that live there. In particular, Candida focuses on ...
In this video, Associate Professor Abby Smith, from the University of Otago, talks about what we can do to help reduce ocean acidification. Point of interest Make links to other initiatives to ...
Dr Candida Savage explains the clues she collects in estuaries and fiords, to understand how changes in land use affect these environments.
Human actions at sea and on land are putting increasing pressure on the ocean and the species that live there.
The ocean has an amazing diversity of habitat types and species that live within them.
