Marine Biologist Visits Our School

Katrina ( aka Phoebes Mum) came to talk to us today about seaweed and phytoplankton. She is a marine biologist who studies seaweed and algae. Her husband ( aka Phillip aka Phoebes Dad)studies phytoplankton in the open ocean but he was sick today. We learnt there are three different colours of seaweed- green, red and brown. Seaweed is very important because it produces 50% of our oxygen. You might think you don't eat seaweed but it is in ice cream, toothpaste and of course sushi, just to name a few. Seaweed is very important for our marine life. Seaworms, sea snails, fish and other small creatures feed from seaweed. One type of seaweed c.Flexulosum has over 1000 creatures living in it. In fact seaweed indirectly feeds the whole food chain.There are over 330 different types of seaweed in NZ and half of these are not found anywhere else in the world. Katrina also talked about Phillips work with phytoplankton.You can only see phytoplankton in a microscope. Phytoplankton is floating algae. It is also called dytom. Some have glass shells with holes in it so they can breathe. Phillip goes on a special research boat with other scientists. The boat is designed to go through ice.