Two Raurimu Avenue School classes took part in the EMR programme in Term One, 2010.  All Year 5-8 students learnt about marine biodiversity in the classroom and snorkeling in the school pool with their EMR coordinator, Kim Jones, before venturing out to a local unprotected area at McGregors Bay.  Here students saw a rocky reef with alot of Kina and a few Spotties and a Red Moki and Leatherjacket - a few pictures below. 

Following this awesome experience, students visited their local marine reserve - Whangarei Harbour marine reserve (Reotahi site) where they saw quite a bit more life including big schools of Spotties, Parore, sponges, small Snapper, squid eggs, a Scallop and even a Stingray sighting!  A few pictures from this trip can be seen below.

Now the students were ready to see New Zealand's oldest marine reserve - Goat Island near Leigh.  They travelled all the way down to the Goat Island marine reserve where they were amazed to see all of the marine biodiversity and the large size of the fish like Snapper that they didn't see in the other areas.  They concluded that marine reserves are a good idea and New Zealand needs more of them to make fishing more sustainable.

 Whaea Traceys's class got inspired to take action for the marine environment and got stuck into making displays on the need for not polluting our oceans with rubbish and the need to stick to the fishing limits.  You can see picture of their work below.  Awesome mahi Raurimu Avenue School!!

Darren Prime and Rayna Dangen won a trip out to the Poor Knights with EMR for their passion and enthusiasm for the EMR programme and marine conservation.  Watch this space for pictures of Darren and Rayna's Poor Knights adventure.