Activity

Materials:

Two metres of stiff nylon tape, recycled fishing line, cord or bait box strapping Cardboard cut out of Sun taped onto a stake

Coloured card bibs (attach with safety pins) (Resource Sheet 9)

LESSON OUTLINE

* Provide each student with a bib (from Resource Sheet 9) and a cord.

* Stake the Sun into the ground and explain to the students the concept of food chains and the importance of seagrass meadows in this chain.

* Students wearing their bibs and holding their cords, await teacher's instructions to connect themselves.

* Each student connects to a need (by both parties holding the cord at each end)

* Call out "Detritus needs the sun, deposit feeders get their energy from detritus,suspension feeders to connect to detritus, carnivores to connect to suspension or deposit feeders, acitve fish eaters to connect to carnivores".  The class now represents a food chain.

* The students to reinforce the ocncept by saying what they are, what they need to survive and what uses them for survivial.  For example, "I am the seagrass.  I get my energy from the suna and need clean water.  I provide shelter for young marine animals".

* Discuss the comples food web.

* Introduce a calamity. "Some pollutants have been dumped down a drain and have poured into the bay where the food chain operates.  Unfortunately, the seagrass has been killed". Remove the seagrass from the food web and show how the whole system is effected.  The scenario could also be the introduction of a lot of moorings in the area and the seagrass be affected by physical damage

Evaluation

* Were students able to comprehend the importance of seagrass meadows in the sheltered shore food web by describing what might happen if the meadows were to become polluted, depleted or disappear entirely?

*Compare the sheltered-shore food web to the food web of others.  For example, a Kimberley foodchain with the cane toad as the calamity or a Kangaroo Island foodchain with removal of vegetation as the calamity. Use the back of the cards.