The National Marine Science Center is not only home to a research facility but also a small aquarium for community outreach and educational purposes. The aquarium represents what marine life you would expect to find in the Solitary Islands Marine Park, which is composed of 5 main islands totalling about 71,000 hectares. The marine park is an especially unique environment due to the East Australian Current (EAC) bringing warm water which mixes with colder local waters and creates complex currents and conditions. See the Marine Parks Authority publication below for a more in depth overview of the marine park.
Over the next few months I will be spending some time working with the aquarium and outreach program. This will include leading some aquarium tours and hands on activities as well as field and lab components for local schools. The educational programs each have a specific focus and topics include: human impacts on river ecosystems, estuarine studies, sea birds, mangroves, fish morphology, marine taxonomy and much more. I am also encouraged to develop and implement my own outreach lesson and activity to expand the current program. I think there is a lot of potential to focus my lesson on the geology and geomorphology of the area and how it contributes to marine life, with a possible lab activity being a rock and mineral identification lab in which they can do some scratch testing of local rocks and learn about Mohs Scale of Hardness and apply it to the local ecosystem. Any thoughts or suggestions anyone has on the topic would be great!
Pictures of a few of the aquarium critters...
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