Tag Archives: School Incursions

How to Celebrate SeaWeek Australia

What is SeaWeek Australia?

SeaWeek Australia is an annual celebration of the sea. It is a major public awareness campaign which aims to educate and encourage appreciation of the sea. For us at Ocean Life Education, SeaWeek Australia is the busiest time of the year and a great opportunity to further increase school and community focus on the deeply woven relationship we have with our majestic ocean and how our survival is underpinned by the health of our oceans.

Check out the foot of our blog for ideas of how you can celebrate SeaWeek.

SeaWeek 2022, 5-13 March

This year’s theme is: Our SEArch – what will you discover? It’s based around the fact that the Ocean is largely unexplored.

Our oceans support most life on earth. As over 70% of the Earth’s surface is underwater, it comes as no surprise that marine species outnumber those on land – an incredible 94 per cent of the Earth’s living species exist within the oceans.

Being an enormous island, Australia has one of the largest ocean territories in the world. Australian Oceans support an immense diversity of life and ecosystems. From the warm waters of tropical Queensland, to the cool Tasman Sea, a staggering range of animals, plants and other life forms call our oceans their home.

And it is not just marine life that is supported by the ocean, we humans depend on our oceans too! On average, we each consume around 25 kilograms of seafood every year, so we rely on it for our food and for economic benefit and jobs. If that’s not enough, we also rely on the ocean for: oxygen, carbon dioxide absorption, climate regulation, breakdown and removal of waste, marine transportation, medicine, tourism, recreation, and fun. The list goes on!

Check out our Blog ‘Ten Reasons Why We Depend on Our Oceans’ for more details.

When is SeaWeek Australia 2022?

SeaWeek Australia 2022 is planned for 5-13 March 2022.

How Can Schools Celebrate Seaweek 2022?

We have lots of ideas for School events and activities to help schools celebrate SeaWeek 2012 in may ways. We are increasing our website resources all the time, so keep checking our Primary and Resources pages. Or why not book one of our interactive Programs to give the kids a real hands-on experience of marine creatures!

Here are some great ideas to get you started…

*Decorate your classroom or childcare setting
*Plastic free class challenge – no plastic in lunch boxes for a day/ week
*Record class plastic usage for a day – pledge to refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle
*Book an ocean-focused incursion or excursion
*Organize a beach clean (& BBQ?) or visit a local beach

*Host an ocean themed coloring or drawing competition
*Fundraise to support a local coast care charity e.g. Coolum Coast Care, Ocean Crusaders, Sea Shepherd

SeaWeek 2022 is hosted by the AAEE (Australian Association for Environmental Education). If you are planning to run a SeaWeek event, competition, or activity, they’d love to promote it! Email: seaweek@aaee.org.au for more information.

Ocean Life Education

Ocean Life Education is dedicated to promoting the preservation of our marine environment to communities and schools. We spend SeaWeek Australia visiting Early Learning Centres and Schools and hosting events throughout Queensland and NSW. Our programs are delivered by qualified Marine Educators with a passion for the ocean. They provide a lively, fun, and interactive experience with our live marine animals. We believe education is the key to inspiring schools and community to protect our oceans.

To join our community of Ocean Legends and become part of the solution, follow us:

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/OceanLifeEducation/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ocean_life_education/

School’s in for Marine Life Lovers

Education Innovator Sir Ken Robinson recently noted: “A great teacher obviously knows their material, but the real skill is engaging them in the material, getting them excited and curious, and firing up their imaginations.”

And that’s where we come in!

Ocean Life Education delivers fun marine education incursions, where students are given the opportunity to interact with a variety of live marine creatures.

Our programs are all closely aligned with the Australian National Curriculum, delivering lessons across a broad range of topics including animal habitats, adaptations and classification.

Through carefully controlled contact, children learn why animals’ look and feel the way they do, how their bodies function, what their individual roles are in their environment and therefore why we need to look after them.

Responding to interactive learning

We understand all children are different and absorb information in different ways.

As passionate educators ourselves, the staff at Ocean Life Education value the importance of connecting students with their subject and showing them that science is a living, breathing part of their world.

Children respond extremely well to having real animals at their fingertips – this one-on-one experience provides a greater depth of understanding which leads to the desire to protect them.

Choose a program that suits current unit themes

What better way to understand Life Cycles, than to see one of our baby sharks at close quarters and observe the eggs they hatched from and note the often significant differences from their adult version?

We will tailor our programs to your classrooms’ current unit theme for all levels of school learning.

Leaders in environmental education

Ocean Life Education is proud to be involved in educating tomorrow’s leaders in environmental awareness and protection.

Our hope is to imprint in every Australian a sense of ownership and protectiveness of our marine environment, and together we will lead the world in the changes necessary for a healthy planet.

What to expect:

Linked to the Australian National Curriculum
Qualified and experienced Marine Educators
Live Marine Animal Interaction Blue linckia seastars, thorny seastars, black sea cucumber, tropical sea cucumber, sea urchins, fresh water turtle and baby bamboo shark
Shark jaws, shells and fascinating artefacts in activity area
FREE colourful bookmark to take home!
FREE risk assessment
FREE coming to visit poster
FREE thorough supporting information, videos and blogs

What teachers think:

“ONE OF THE BEST INCURSIONS I HAVE EVER SEEN – KEEN, INTERESTING PRESENTERS WHO ARE TRULY PASSIONATE ABOUT THEIR SUBJECT!” Jasmine Molineux, Patricks Road State School, (Year 2) 2018

For more information, visit our School Programs page or Contact Us to request a program outline for your year level.

Why we use live marine animals in educating children

Photo: Kids In Action Sunshine Coast, 2014

Every so often teachers say to us, “I’m not sure about using live marine animals in our incursions, isn’t it better to leave them in their natural environment?”

It’s a common moral question I’m sure we have all asked ourselves before.

The short answer is yes, animals should be in their natural environments. What I also like to ask in response to this question is “how do we inspire young Australians to appreciate the living environment if they have never come into contact with it?”

Ocean Life Education was built upon the principles of respect for the environment, respect for its animals and a belief that education and understanding will honour the first two.

As a Marine Ecologist with a passion for the ocean and an avid diver and sailor, my family and I spend our leisure time at the beach or out on the ocean. When we holiday, we holiday at places that showcase the natural wonder of our oceans so our children grow up having this same love and respect for the natural environment.

We created Ocean Life Education in 2006, so we could lead the world in the changes necessary for a healthy planet. To realise this vision, we knew we would need to create a sense of ownership and protectiveness of our oceans in the students and children we teach.

Live marine animals in Education for Sustainability

Our programs are based upon the principles of Education for Sustainability.

The EfS theory “goes beyond providing information about the environment. It is a process which motivates and engages people in creating sustainable futures…” (ARIES).

Through our interactive educational programs, children learn why animals’ look and feel the way they do, how their bodies function, what their individual role is in their environment and therefore why we need to look after them.

This is how we fulfil our EfS role in engaging and equipping students for positive change that will last a lifetime.

Regulated industry and legislation

At Ocean Life Education, we are committed to animal welfare, care and sustainability. We abide by the relevant legislation such as the Animal Care and Protection Act 2001 and the Nature Conservation Act 1992.

Our animals are sourced from world leading suppliers of sustainably collected marine specimens to ensure the safety and protection of the environment.

Sea Urchin, one of the live marine animals used in the Ocean Life Education programs

Managed handling

We are dedicated to the welfare of our marine animals while in our protection and during our programs.

Our strict ‘1 finger touch’ policy helps us to maintain a positively controlled learning environment for the children and the animals. We ask young children to say and use our care for animal catch phrase “stroking not poking”.

How we use animals in our programs

Want to see what it’s like when we visit your classroom with our animals? Watch this short video when Ten’s Totally Wild joined us on a school visit.

Still want to know more? Read our Frequently Asked Questions.

If you still have questions, we’d be happy to answer them. Phone us on 07 5443 8545.

Science Week 2015 Wrap Up

Clayfield College Year 4 student

By Richard Coward

Wow what a Science Week we’ve just had, a fantastic initiative to get kids engaged in all things science.

No better way to love science than to learn all about our amazing marine creatures, why they are important and why we should look after them.

Participating Schools

Some huge thanks go out to Clayfield College, St Joseph’s School Nundah, Parklands Christian College and Brisbane Adventist College for hosting us during Science Week.

Every one of the kids were an absolute pleasure to share knowledge with, they enjoyed the close contact with our animals absorbing all aspects of their existence.

Program learning focus

With volumes of information available about creatures from the sea, the main focus of learning were in there areas of:

Adaptation
Classification
Habitats; and
Human impact

Each school program is extremely engaging and fun to cover, the latter an increasingly important topic within schools as we strive to understand and protect our surrounding environment under the pressure of an ever increasing population.

Memorable moments shared

Visiting these schools provided many memorable moments, too many to share in a short blog post. Here is a small sample from our schools visited this week.

Total participation and enthrallment at explaining why sharks attack humans (Yr 4 Clayfield College)
The fun and challenge of delivering 5 different presentations to every year level throughout the whole school day (P-6 St Josephs)
The thrill and enjoyment on the faces of the Prep children as they interacted with our live animals (Parklands Christian College)
Total engagement of children with good background knowledge and amazing intelligent questions at the presentation’s conclusion. (Yr 1 Brisbane Adventist College)

Invaluable Experience

Science Week provides children the chance to see that science is a fun and cool subject to learn.

It is important to keep encouraging children to pursue science throughout their academic lives and continue to produce creative successful scientists of the future.

Children are often scared off by science and all its jargon, but at Ocean Life Education we break down that barrier, make understanding animals and their natural environment simple and easy to remember. This empowers children and encourages them to dig deeper in search for answers.

Once again we would like to thank the schools who included our incursion into their celebration of Science Week, we look forward to seeing them again in future and encourage all schools to jump on board and enlighten their children towards a brighter scientific future.

We strive to provide an invaluable experience propelling the school kids of today into the scientists of tomorrow.

For great conversation, videos and more, visit the National Science Week website.

To book your next Science Week incursion with Ocean Life Education, contact us.