EDUCATIONAL TOURS FOR SCHOOLS

EDUCATIONAL TOURS FOR SCHOOLS

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Aquasearch Lab / Aquarium can take a group of up to 30 students maximum at one time. The entire tour takes approximately 50-60 minutes for a group. A second group can then come for the next tour. Groups of >20 are split into two. The two portions of the tour include:

Portion 1 [approximately 25 minutes]:

Guided tour through the marine display featuring a 30 year old cultured giant clam (100 + kg in weight at this age), corals and colourful reef fish (in particular, clown anemonefish - Nemo's siblings, which we rear here).
Visit to the Live Foods area, where stock and working cultures of marine microalgae are seen. Each students has a look under the microscope at either microalgae, rotifers, or brine shrimp.
The wet lab cage is viewed with some marine ornamental broodstock fish, tanks used in larval culture, and some freshwater fish. Students may be given a brief talk on 4 methods of reproduction used by freshwater fish and on practical math used in aquaculture.

Portion 2 [approximately 25 minutes]

The group walks along Gustav Creek Bridge to our house where Aquasearch's Video is shown in our breezeway on The Life Histories and Aquaculture of Giant Clams and Clown Anemonefish and / or Odyssey, a 15 min. film by Dr. Walter Starck on the Great Barrier Reef.

Cost of the Tour: $ 7.70 (incl. GST) per person

CLICK HERE FOR BOOKING FORM

Special Projects which may be done by schools that are here for most of a week or for the Magnetic Island State School:

A class may set up microalgae or rotifer cultures and do microscope counts on the growth increase within a school week period.
A class may make observations on fish, clams, anemones, and coral in the marine display for descriptive biology on feeding or behaviour.
A class may set up an experiment or make observations on freshwater aquarium fish.

Magnetic Island Reef Walk Tours

During the winter low tides around the new or full moon periods from about April - October each year Aquasearch can organise to take out a group for a guided tour. The tour is walking on the reef flats of Magnetic Island, where corals are exposed and fish may have been trapped in the tide pools. The reef flats in different bays have various types of corals and reef organisms that would be visible to the students by walking, and there are mangroves nearshore on west-facing beaches which can be visited. The group should contact us for planning a program, and for cost per person (normally $7.70 per person, including GST). Aquasearch would be acting in the capacity of a consultant for the group on-site, and would not be responsible for the insurance against accidents for the group.

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Low tide at a reef close to Horseshoe Bay. Cultured giant clams on left & hard corals in tidepool, above.

Magnetic Island State School group visiting the late Mr. R. Kieth Bryson at White Lady Bay during a low tide in latter May 2003.

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