Year 5-6 visit from Blake NZ. Virtual Reality field trip looking at Marine Life ecosystems, food chains, and human impact.

On the 5th of March, Alice from the Blake Organisation came to talk to the year 5 & 6 team about marine life in NZ. She also showed us some cool clips while we used VR headsets to give us the experience like we were underwater with marine life. It made us feel like we were really diving underwater.

Some of the things she showed us were dolphins, sharks and whales and the occasional appearance of Jimmy the photographer. Jimmy works for National Geographic New Zealand. Alice also showed us some animals on land, like blue penguins and a cute seal lounging around.

Some of the things she talked about were how sometimes when fishermen fish with big nets, they catch creatures that they did not intend to catch like dolphins and sharks. She also talked about how whales can send messages to each other; some can send messages from New Zealand to Alaska but ships can intercept the sounds and force the whales to deviate off course.

Our favourite video was when we saw some really cute baby seals playing in the river. There was also a pretty scary one of stingrays. They were huge and because it was VR it felt like you were really there.

To end, we had a group chat about the rules around a marine reserve. Some of the rules are; not to feed the fish because it could poison them and they would start to rely on us humans to feed them which would muck up the food chain. Another rule, you are not allowed to take anything living or non living. So you are not even allowed to take a rock or a seashell.

The final thing Alice showed us was a whale that some scientists put a tracker on so we can see his yearly migration. Apparently the first time he did the journey with his mother. We also talked about why he did it with his mother the first time and not his father. Alice shared a link with us so we can rewatch the videos and see Wiremu do his yearly migration.

This experience was amazing and we all had a great time and if I’m being honest it was a lot more fun than learning about marine life by reading.