Marine pollution

Central idea:

Human activities impact the balance of the marine environment

Who we are?

Hello everyone, we are group 5 and our names are: Shayne, Neelan, Lea, Pallaven and Aarush. We have been working collaboratively for six weeks under the guidance of our mentor, Miss Anuradha. Our topic is Marine Pollution; our inquiry led us to the WakaShio oil spill because it's related to pollution in our ocean. As the WakaShio crashed in our Ocean: the Indian Ocean. We found it very interesting to inquire about the marine environment. Moreover, we believe that the marine environment is essential to our well being as we are surrounded by the sea, being on an island. We hope you will share our concern about the marine environment after browsing through our findings

Lines of inquiry

Change

Changes in the marine environment

Connection

Relationship between humans and marine environment

Responsibility

Our responsibilities towards marine environment

Art Element

Math Component

Pie chart observation

Survey questions

Action Component

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Interview

Interview Questions with marine pollution experts

If pollution reduces in the marine environment, do you think it could increase?

Yes it could increase, if people do not continue taking action against the pollution.
It is something that should be done on a long term basis.
Even if we take action now, the pollutants that are already in the water are causing harm.

Do you think every human activity can harm the Marine environment?

It depends on the activity being done.
For example, the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation for construction in coastal areas, irresponsible dumping and littering can definitely affect the marine environment.

Do you think every human activities can impact on the ocean?

It depends on where you are and what you are doing, if you live on the coastal area it will directly impact the marine environment more. If you are away it doesn’t mean you won’t impact the marine environment, you will cause an impact but the impact will be less direct and will take more time to reach the marine environment.

What do you think of the current situation regarding the marine environment?

Climate change is something that is happening everywhere around the world and Mauritius is being affected too.
There has been an increase in the sea water temperature and this increases the risk of coral bleaching,it affects the growth of corals, algae and affects other marine organisms in a way or another.
To help with this situation, Mauritius has some marine protected areas which protect marine life, there are also regions where coral farming is being done and scientific researchers are monitoring the marine environment on a regular basis.

Do you think overfishing affects the marine environment?

Yes it does!
Overfishing actually is taking out fish from the sea in an extensive way. This leaves not enough fish to mate and spawn, hence fish stocks cannot be renewed.
If fish are overexploited, they become endangered and may become extinct.
Fish is actually food to different marine organisms, for example sharks feed on fish, so if there is overfishing there will not be enough food for them to eat and in turn the sharks will die too. So it changes the normal activities of the marine ecosystems.

Do you think the Wakashio disaster negatively affected all the coral reefs surrounding where it crashed ?

The corals in the surrounding areas were definitely affected due to the toxic substances found in the oil.
Coral reefs are homes to different fish, since the corals were affected the fish in the area were affected too.
Luckily action was taken immediately, and now the marine environment is slowly recovering but nevertheless there will still be long term effects of the oil spill.

After

Changes in the marine environment

The marine environment was not polluted before, it was clean and had no plastic cans or any type of chemicals. But now it’s dirty, full of plastic cans and trash and other things that pollute the ocean. Before, our Marine environment was clean, not polluted and there were no human activities.

But nowadays, people are using technology and using lots of plastic that finish their course in our ocean. Moreover, people are destroying the coral reefs in various ways such as by polluting the sea, throwing trash on beaches, these end up in the sea which is home to lots of sea animals. The coral reefs are also important to us as they prevent sharks and all sea animals from coming into the lagoon. They also protect the lagoon from big waves.

Before

After

Connection

Relationship between humans and marine environments

Oceans are made up of 70% of water. Our oceans provide us with food, energy, minerals and we need to protect our marine environment and don’t pollute it. We need to protect our oceans because it’s one of the most important and powerful resources. It also gives us 50%-85% of the air we breathe, and it’s the sea plants that are giving us air.

The coral reefs in the sea help because it protects us from whirlpools, tornadoes, tsunamis and dangerous sea creatures. However, they are at risk due to a very bad human activity which is deep sea floor mining. This happens when people put machines in the sea and destroy corals and the ecosystems of marine animals. They do it to get minerals such as gold, iron, nickel, copper and diamonds.

Another way in which humans have a negative impact on marine environments is when plastic pollutes the oceans. As a result, coral bleaching occurs. Coral bleaching is when coral lose their vibrant colours and turn white . Because the plastic causes bad effects on the coral reefs. When coral lose their colours this may be a bad sign because they might die if they turn white. This also affects the habitats of many sea creatures. These creatures are: crabs, eels, fishes, turtles and many other more. When this happens the animals do not have nowhere to build their habitats.

Moreover, the Wakashio oil spill that happened in Mauritius on 25th July 2020 is clear that humans have a direct relationship with the marine environment. The oil that spilled from the ship caused great damage to the marine ecosystem, thus impacting on the life of so many fishermen who are dependent on the sea for their living. Furthermore, the boat destroyed so many corals and killed so many sea animals. The schools around the area had to close because the air was too toxicated due to the oil spill. Oil was spilling everywhere and thousands of corals were toxicated and destroyed, 30 dolphins died to the oil and were dragged to shore.

Responsibility

As individuals and as a community, we all have a responsibility towards our oceans. We have to take care of our oceans by not polluting it, because if we do so, we will suffer from health issues as a direct consequence of marine pollution. Firstly, as sea creatures are consumed by humans they will be contaminated by toxic seafood. Moreover, sea plants and coral reefs will be damaged or become extinct.

Our responsibility is also to use biodegradable objects or reusable objects instead of non-biodegradable ones. Because non-biodegradable objects harm the ocean as they stay long in the ocean and will impact on the balance of the environment. When we throw non-biodegradable objects, on the beach or in the ocean, they stay in the ocean for hundreds of years.

Furthermore, coral bleaching occurs when coral reefs lose their vibrant colours and turn white. This happens when plastic is dumped in the ocean and thrown near the coral reefs. So these several things happen, because of us but if we take the responsibility of stopping the throwing of waste/garbage, plastics, cans and other stuff everywhere and specially on the beach, we will manage to keep the sea clean.

Interviews

Stephane

With Mr Stephan we learned that coral bleaching mostly happens by speed boats; the propellers might not touch the coral but with the wind that it's creating the fragile coral gets blown off and they die. We also saw some pictures of the coral bleaching and some very colourful coral.We also saw Stephan cleaning so much oil from the Wakashio.'s incident. We learned that the coral reefs where the WakaShio crashed were badly affected and started to bleach. Many corals even died. He also explained to us that not every corals are affected and died in Mauritius. The other corals around Mauritius are very healthy.

Delsha

In the zoom meeting with Miss Delsha we talked about pollution in the ocean

And how does coral bleaching affect the marine ecosystem.

She showed us some pictures on how the marine environment is filled with trash and waste.

During the Wakashio crash many animals have died like dolphins, whales and sharks it was not only the Wakashio, the worst crash, there was a boat in the sea that took on fire, even the water was on fire. She showed us that, if heavy oil is spread in the ocean, the oil floats and blocks the plants from the sun. It was a very great meeting with her, she answered our questions as we wanted and took her time to help us. She was very kind and got lots of information from her .

Letter to speaker

10.09.2021

Dear Sir,

We are a group of five students of year 6 from Clavis International primary School. As we are working on the theme “Marine Pollution”, we would like to deepen our understanding and gather more information on what is happening in the sea around our island.

We would therefore like to interview you to learn more about the state of the sea

surrounding Mauritius.

We would be grateful if you could spare some time to answer some questions that my team and I would like to ask. If you are agreeable, we could organise a zoom meeting or meet in person at school depending on your availability.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Kind regards,

(Lea, Shayne, Neelan, Pallaven and Aarush)

Marine pollution team.

Mother tongue

Pas polluter nou la mer, servi poubelle

Don't pollute our oceans, instead pollute our bins.

Protege nou locean pou protege nou fitir

Protect our oceans to protect our future.

Pense bleu, choizir vert. Arret pollition marin.

Think Blue and Go Green. Stop Marine Pollution.

Reflection

During the first week of the exhibition we were lazy and not really knowing what to do, it was a very big struggle to get our lines of inquiry and Central Idea. We got so scared and thought we wouldn’t make it through the Exhibition. We weren’t up to date with any work and we couldn’t process. And the struggles of week one were impacting the work, and we weren’t progressing at all. We didn’t work collaboratively as a team or just didn’t work at all! We have not learnt anything by the first weeks because we weren’t concentrating on our work.

For the second week we felt like we should put in more effort and start by taking the Exhibition seriously otherwise we wouldn't succeed in the Exhibition process. We had many struggles but found our 1 & 2 lines of inquiry and got a central idea draft. Working as a team got better. This week we progressed a little but nothing new. We started understanding how things are working out. We felt stressed but not really because everyone was working as a team but then things got better. Our struggles were focusing and getting the central Idea.

For the third week we got serious and put up a lot of effort in our exhibition. We got our lines of inquiry but they weren’t finalized yet by the teacher or our mentor. We had to do zooms because our mentor was sick so she couldn’t come for 3-4 days so we had to focus without her. Our central idea got better and the teacher said “you guys need one more draft, then it will be finalized”. As we couldn’t get our lines of inquiry to be good, we went to Mr. Jeff to ask him some questions for getting our lines of inquiry. He told us to “Go to the Yr4 or Yr5 teachers to ask them questions” and we listened and went to do a 30 minute interview/survey. We had struggles because we were meant to get our central idea done already and we were stressed. Our team work was good. We were working as a team and were responsible with what we had to do.

For the fourth week we finalized our lines of inquiry and our central idea. We also did some research individually on each line of inquiry as advised by our mentor. We then started to work on the process for what we did for these weeks that already passed.

We also planned to do a meeting on zoom with Mr. Stephane Arekion, who is a diver in the sea and also with Miss Delsha who is actually working at the university of Mauritius on marine pollution. We also sent a letter to these two people who we were going to interview.

For week five we went to our mentor, had some talks and finished the research that had to be done. As a team we progressed well with the work and we were up to date with all the work. We were preparing for an interview with Miss Delsha and Mr. Stephane and both happily agreed to help us. With Miss Delsha, we did a virtual interview and Mr. Stephane came to Clavis. They gave us helpful information which would help us and they answered our questions well and it was a great interview. We planned our action component and Math component and also did our art element. This week our team work was not good, we did well in working but teamwork was awful.

For week six, our struggles were that we were a bit tired after all the things we did and our mentor edited our action component. In terms of teamwork, we were good. We did our survey and got 35 people. We also made it into a pie chart to represent how much data we got on interviewing some teachers and the year 5 students. We were done in no time with our action component so that in week 7 our mentor would edit it and we can soon present the action component to year 5.

In week 7, we were glad to be at school everyday to get on with our work and work collaboratively. Moreover, our mentor corrected our action component and we started to practice our lines for the presentation. On Tuesday we presented our action component . We are now looking forward to the website to be published. We were very stressed because we had only 3 days and our teamwork was very bad but we were progressing well. Since it was our last day on our web page we are stressing a lot, we are feeling so stressed because we have to be quick.

French oral presentation

Le Naufrage du MV Wakashio

Le MV Wakashio, un vraquier japonais, s'est écrasé en juillet 2020 au bord des mers mauriciennes. Au bout de quelques jours, des tonnes de fioul, que contenait le transporteur, ont commencé à se déverser dans la mer. Cela a commencé à causer un niveau élevé de pollution dans nos mers.

Les membres de l’équipage ont avoué qu'ils organisaient une fête d'anniversaire. Ils ne portaient pas attention au déplacement du bateau. Le capitaine du navire faisait même la fête avec les autres. Il n'y avait donc personne aux commandes du navire. Le navire se trouvait à proximité de la zone marine protégée.

Le Premier ministre Pravind Jugnauth a demandé aux gens de la compagnie « éco sud » s'ils pouvaient aider à absorber tout le pétrole. Les salons de coiffure ainsi qu’une grande partie de la population ont également contribué en donnant des cheveux pour aider à arrêter la propagation.

Aujourd’hui,plus d’un an après cette catastrophe, les activités n’ont toujours pas repris normalement dans la région sud. La plage n’est toujours pas accessible aux baigneurs ainsi qu’aux pêcheurs.

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French oral video

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