Under the Sea: Coral Reefs with Questacon

Pack your swimmers and slip slop slap because we’re heading out to the reef! We’ll take a deep dive into what makes a reef a reef and get to know some of the animals and people that live and work in them.

Participants will get to share some of their favourite reef creatures and make a coral polyp to add to their class’s ‘reef’. They’ll learn about some of the conditions corals need to survive, and what happens when those conditions change, as well as do some engineering by testing different materials and how they might be used to build tools for scientists to use. We’ll guide participants through some experiments using some simple materials, while collecting their hypotheses and ideas through interactive polls and Q&A functions.

Teachers will receive a resource guide that outlines the key concepts covered in the webinar, as well as some simple classroom activities which can be completed either live during the webinar or extended at a later date to support existing lesson plans.

Our webinars have live captioning available. 

Technology requirements:
Zoom capable device
Internet connection

Materials

Paper coral reef model

• Small coloured paper (e.g. A4 paper cut into 8)
• Scissors
• Coloured markers
• Tape

Floaty sinky

• Container of water
• Various small objects of different materials, for example:
  • Ping pong ball
  • Marble
  • Pencil
  • Wooden pop stick
  • Eraser
  • Plastic spoon
  • Towels to help contain spills