News of the Day

Melbourne Aquarium
Stuart Lucca-Pope

Bron did her (rather good) impression of a weather person, and as Anth is feeling a bit sick his segues were a bit dodgey - mix to marine education was a leap but it all worked out in the end.

Don't miss the Butt crackdown (cigarettes that is) on Wednesday - specifically targeting councils and urban designers to minimise the problem. Now that smoking is banned indoors, there are more butts on the street.

Watch out for WSSD on the Sustainable Couch - where 6 people sit of the sustainability couch will talk with the audience. To attend, contact RMIT

Anths fact of the day: There are over 750 oil and gas wells drilled since 1965. Despite this number of wells, almost everything outside the Gippsland basin was dry.

Voting for the Marine Emblem has closed - watch this space for the outcome.

Not many people know that the aquarium is privately owned - but has acknowledged the importance of education by having the Blue Zoo teams take kids on a 2 hour tour (not a 3 hour tour - they always end in tears). Because the exhibits are behind glass, the team use puppets to provide the key interactivity (watch out for the 1m weedy sea dragon).

The adults also find it fun but the approach is a bit different - it tends to be more interactive with the staff.

The issue is one of connection between people and the creatures that live below the blue line.

The kinder staff decided that they wanted the physical environment to reflect the environment that surrounded the community. To overcome the mission brown and olive green, they decided to do a major transformation.

Local volunteers got together and repainted the building to reflect the ocean. Even the bollards were transformed into marine creatures, and the kids have been known to hug the occy's that are painted on the poles.

In addition to that, the kinder has also built a whole series of tile mosaics representing the the rock pools around the the local community.

The artists took Bron on a tour of the rock pools (and she even found a limpet) around the kinder.

The individual tile mosaics were done by the local artists, and then with the help of the strong parents, they were installed into the existing brickwork to make them look like they had been there for a long time.

The artists are all proud of their work, but the most important people are the kids - and what they think

Crab by Alice Kelly

Shrimp by Sue Brown

Starfish by Sandra Pace

Mark was not surprised to hear 4 years olds talk about algae - the real excitement of discoving things - parents and kids together - on places with dull names such as Mud Island. MESA started to provide a forum for marine education advocacy, and bring education up as a legitimate part of marine management. There is a website to provide teaching resources and a forum for networking - it is a great source of information for anyone looking to find more information on the marine environment.

"Ether"

"Octopus's Garden"

"Here is the sea"

Decoder Ring

Marine Discovery Centre

Marine Discovery Centre