Zooming in on plankton

 

Our Inquiry into sea creatures has included exploring the lifecycles of creatures like jellyfish and pāua. Many of these creatures go through a larval stage. During this time, they are plankton. We have also explored how some of the biggest creatures on the planet, baleen whales, feed by collecting tiny plankton.

In fact, it has become clear to us that plankton may be tiny, but it's a pretty important part of our marine environment.

Time to find out more and take a look at some local plankton! Luckily, our Senior students have for a number of years been part of a project called Moana Mana. This has allowed them to build up a wealth of knowledge around observing and monitoring the health of our marine environment. During beach week, and at other regular times throughout the year, they can be found down at Worser Bay Boat Club, working with experts to survey the ocean and the creatures that live there. This has including taking plankton samples to view under microscopes in order to survey the creatures they find.

On Tuesday afternoon, we headed down the track to the beach.

On arrival, our first job was to collect some plankton. This is done by dragging a fine-gauge net through the sea. 

The plankton collects at the bottom of the net.

John showed us how the cap at the bottom of the net is unscrewed and the plankton tipped into a container with a small amount of water. It is usually possible to see some very tiny creatures zipping around in the jar and also some green slimy stuff which is mainly phytoplankton (small algae and plants). Zooplankton is the name for the animal part of plankton, like larvae and fish babies. 

Now, it was time to take our container of plankton back to the boat club classroom for analysis.

We put a few drops of plankton onto some petri dishes, placed them under the microscopes and focussed in. We quickly began to find creatures!

We had a plankton identification guide and some photos on hand to help us to figure out what we were looking at. Crustaceans of various kinds, jellyfish larva, salps and very small jellyfish were all visible. 

We also saw plenty of phytoplankton: the green slime looks pretty under the microscope.

This was a cat's eye under the microscope: not plankton, but pretty interesting to look at, all the same.

Thanks so much to our big buddies in Māhutonga and Matariki for hosting us and sharing your knowledge and giving us a whole new perspective on the ocean near our school.

When we got back to school we looked at some of the pictures of plankton and had a go at sketching the details of the microscopic sea creatures.

Fishing around for ideas

 

When we explore the world, we all do so in different ways.

Some of us are dancers, makers, creators, sculptors and the list goes on.

As we have been exploring the world of Sea Creatures we have had opportunities to think about our learning and how we can express our ideas. 

Below we started with an empty tarpaulin. Then an idea, what if it was an aquarium? How could we make it a home for sea life? What could we create to fill the space?  

Some went straight for the shells and others for the blocks to build things for the fish to swim around in.

Learning can be expressed in so many different ways and sometimes all it needs is permission to be approached in a way that sings to you.

This has evolved into another rocky shore appearing. What do you notice living amongst the rocks and shells?

Exploring Our Positive Emotions

 

We all hope that our children will live lives that are full of Positive Emotions. In Autahi, we've been exploring feelings like joy, awe and excitement. How will we recognise them in ourselves and others? What experiences and people trigger these feelings for us? 

We know that the benefits of experiencing Positive Emotions are more far-reaching that simply feeling good for a while. Research tells us that frequently experiencing Positive Emotions contributes to a lasting sense of well-being: 'things are generally going well for me'. This is associated with being more socially connected, productive and physically healthy, too. This may be due to the 'broaden and build' theory (Fredrickson, 2002, 2004). This is based on the idea that negative experiences carry a perceived threat, causing us to narrow our focus, close down our attention and behave more defensively. Conversely, positive experiences cause us to engage in a more expansive and open way with our environment, allowing more curious, creative and flexible thinking.

As ever in Autahi, picture books have helped us to begin to tease apart the different kinds of Positive Emotions so that we can better identify and name what we're feeling. How Do I Feel?, with it's beautiful illustrations, is a great resource for this.

We also shared some stories in which characters experience Positive Emotions. In both cases, these feeling are prompted by doing something they love.

We asked our Autahi children to reflect on times when they experience Positive Emotions. Knowing what prompts Positive Emotions for us gives us the ability to seek out more of these experiences. Here are some of their ideas.

It is exciting to see them beginning to grapple with more nuanced vocabulary to describe their emotions, such as proud, calm, joyful and peaceful. It is also clear that they are able to recall moments when they have experienced Positive Emotions. Family, favourite toys and time spent in the natural world are themes. There is lots of inspiration here for how we can foster more Positive Emotions in our days.

Emotions and Athletics

This week Autahi joined up with our friends down the hallway in Tautoru to have a go at some athletics. As part of our P.E programme we have been practicing throwing, catching and running. These fundamental skills help us with our body movement and balance.

After this experience we associated with some emotions that we felt as we gave these activities our best try. Check out some of the amazing Autahi writers!

 

We are explorers of ... the beach!

 

This term, our Inquiry has focussed on creatures that live in the ocean. Living close to the sea, our students already have ideas about the creatures that live there. Watching Octonauts on TV has definitely had an impact, too! We have been trying to build on their knowledge and experiences by exploring some animals in detail.

Our Autahi students have been particularly interested in finding out more about some of the larger, charismatic creatures like octopuses and sea stars. A trip down to Worser Bay Beach is a chance to focus on some of the smaller creatures that inhabit the ocean. 

It's also a great opportunity to reconnect with this part of our local environment. As so often happens in Autahi, playing and exploring go hand in hand, and lead to some great learning. 

On the sand, we quickly began to find sea glass and a few pieces of pumice and mussel shells. We've been learning about the gruesome and fascinating way that octopuses eat mussels: had an octopus eaten the mussels out of these shells?

We started to make a collection of our finds along the wall.

Turning over a large log revealed sand hoppers, leaping about and shy beetles burying themselves back in the sand.

In the rock pools, we found no fewer than thirteen small crabs in quite a short time. There were also cat's eyes, a whelk and several different seaweeds. 

We hope to pay a return visit to the beach before the end of the term.  As the water warms up and Spring progresses, it will be interesting to see whether we find different creatures this time.

In the meantime, we will keep building our knowledge of the creatures that live in the ocean.

Thanks to all our parent helpers who helped to make this trip possible - and also so much fun.