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253 Imlay Street, EDEN NSW 2551 December 2012 P: 02 6496 1699 F: 02 6496 2404

National Science Week 2012: A sexy success SCMDC teamed up with a number of partners for a week of fun, trivia and sexy science during National Science

Week 2012. It was a huge success with lots of people getting involved with science in a fun and engaging way.

With the support of the Australian National University (ANU), SCMDC welcomed guest speaker Sheree Marris back to

the region for a series of presentations to local high schools amid a number of initiatives to showcase how science

can be fun.

Ms Marris, a former Young Australian of the Year

Environmental Award winner, had the students completely

engaged with stories of diving with great white sharks,

international travel and amazing adventures – all based on

her own life as a marine scientist and environmental

communicator.

Bega High School, Lumen Christi Catholic College and Eden

Marine High School students heard of the many and varied

career opportunities available to anyone who studies

marine sciences at university and some of the quirky sex

behaviours of the local marine life.

(Above: Sheree Marris with Eden Marine High School Marine Studies students)

A packed house attended the Discovery

Centre’s Marine Mania Trivia Night on the

Wednesday night at the Merimbula Wharf

Restaurant and Aquarium and a similar

number enjoyed a hilarious presentation by

Sheree Marris on Friday night based on her

bookKamaSEAtra – Secrets of Sex in the Sea.

(Right: The winning Trivia Night team – Leone Fairweather, Alan Hepburn, Libby Hepburn, Allan Broadhurst, Guye Richards, Michael McMaster, Brett Weingarth and Angelika Erpic)

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Staff attend Marine Discovery Centres Australia forum

SCMDC staff members Jillian Riethmuller

and Sheree Epe attended the recent

MDCA forum hosted by the Central Coast

Marine Discovery Centre in Terrigal, NSW.

MDCA is a collaborative group comprised

of a number of marine discovery centres

from around Australia. With funding from the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC), MDCA

members meet annually to discuss marine education, exchange ideas and resources and observe how other centres

deliver their education programs.

Sheree and Jill have returned with a mountain of

ideas on how to improve and enhance existing

displays and educational programs, as well as some

new concepts.

“I find these annual forums a great opportunity to see

how other centres are doing things. I always get some

great new ideas and am excited to get back to SCMDC

to implement some of the things I’ve learnt” says

Sheree.

As well as attending workshops and presentations,

Sheree and Jill also had the opportunity to kayak on beautiful Avoca Lagoon and snorkel at The Haven. (Above: Jill

and colleagues enjoy a kayak on Avoca Lagoon)

“The snorkel was great! We swam our way through a sea of comb jellies, saw a massive stingray and a Port Jackson

shark” says Jill.

The staff looks forward to attending next year’s forum. For more information about MDCA visit www.mdca.org.au

(Above: Believe it or not, the people in the image above are some of Australia’s best marine educators!)

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SURFAH back for a second season Our good friends from the SURFAH (Surface and Underwater Research on Feeding Australian Humpback Whales) team were once again working from Eden for their second consecutive season, staying for a five week stint this time. University of Qld PhD Candidate Kylie Owen was joined by regular David Donnelly as well as Associate Professor Joe Warren from Stonybrook University in the US. Joe specialises in the study of prey, in particular krill, the mainstay of a humpback’s diet.

Above: krill - the reason our region is the focus of SURFAH’s research (image courtesy of Amy James)

The team leaders were well supported by a large group of multinational volunteers whose main role was to point the research vessel ‘Blackfish’ in the right direction to study feeding whales. As described to an audience of interested people at the presentation in September, the work involved carefully placing a ‘D-tag’ onto the back of a feeding whale and after following it for several hours, retrieving the tag for analysis. Whilst the whales were again plentiful, their behaviour made the SURFAH team’s work more challenging this year and it will certainly be interesting to hear the outcome of the research once analysed. The team wishes to convey their thanks to the community, and particularly to Ros and Gordon Butt from Cat Balou Cruises for consistently passing on information about where certain pods might be found. They also wish to extend their gratitude to Craig Dickman and the rest of the crew at the NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service for their support and assistance. It was particularly exciting for the crew and volunteers that NPWS allowed access to the top of Boyd’s Tower to the team; a significant event given that the last time the tower was used to spot whales it was by

the Davidson Whaling family, for a very different reason!

Left: Ailbhe Kavanagh, Kylie Owen and Joe Warren on Blackfish’s bowsprit with Boyd’s Tower in the background. (Image courtesy SURFAH and David Donnelly) Below: It’s not all beer and skittles when the weather turns. But it’s nice when the local tour boat operator provides a hot cuppa! (Image courtesy of SURFAH and Scott Sheehan)

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A happy bunch of whale researchers in the best possible place to look for whales – the top of Boyd’s Tower. (Image courtesy of SURFAH)

Above: Professor Joe Warren at work and one of the echosounder images (Images courtesy of SURFAH and Prof Joe Warren)

The images above depict what the prey mapping team of SURFAH were concentrating on while others were busy with tagging whales. In addition to net tows which collect zooplankton specimens, the main tool used to collect the data is an acoustic echosounder which is essentially a fancy fish-finder. It uses sound energy to detect underwater aggregations of zooplankton and fish which are the food source for the humpback whales in this project. This echogram shows a range of scattering under the surface of the ocean as their vessel travelled over 2 km of survey. The bottom shows up as strong scattering (red) at ~ 85 m. And when this transect started they were over a school of krill that was nearly 100 ft thick (the large red blob reaching 30 m below the surface). Occasionally they also saw a whale on the echogram when they swam under the boat. In addition to the acoustics, the team analyzes net tow data. The petri dish in the image on the right shows some of the krill and copepods collected in one tow. By measuring the type and size of animals collected in the net, Prof Warren can use that information to convert his acoustic data into estimates of how many krill (and other animals such as fish) are in the ocean where the whales are feeding. This process can be complicated depending on how many different types of zooplankton and fish are in the ocean.

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Sapphire Coast students get Whale Wise!

Whales were the talk of the town again from September until November with humpbacks breaching left right and

centre, orcas visiting Lennards Island and the Eden Whale Festival making a splash in town. On top of all this the local

students of the Bega Valley Shire became Whale Wise through participating in fun hands on workshops in the lead

up to the Whale Festival.

Thanks to a Whale Festival Grant from the Mumbulla Foundation, staff from Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre

and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service travelled around visiting various schools in the region with a selection

of interactive whale activities, hands-on games and exciting stories. The students had the chance to feel whale

bones, have a go at eating like a whale, discover how to identify whales and maybe even sing like one.

The workshop reached over 350 students across the shire. The schools visited were: Towamba Public, Wyndham

Public, Wolumla Public, Mallacoota P-12, St Joseph’s Bombala, Eden Public and Mumbulla School.

(right: Wolumla Primary School students learning about flukes, fins and blows)

(below: the kids at Wyndham Primary loved the National Parks’ blow up whale)

Right: Simony Douglas from National Parks working with Wyndham students on whale identification. Below: Jill from SCMDC with Eden Public students learning about a sperm whale jaw.

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Sheree presents at NSW Coastal Conference SCMDC Marine Scientist and Teacher Sheree Epe recently attended the NSW Coastal Conference which was held in Kiama. The three day conference featured presentations from scientists, policy makers and community organisations about coastal management. Sheree was invited to give a presentation about innovative approaches to education, media and engagement. “The presentation went really well and it was a great opportunity to showcase what we are doing here at SCMDC to a wider audience” said Sheree. “I had some really interesting questions from the audience at the end of the presentation”. Sheree was also asked to present on one of the field trips on offer. “I took a small group on a rocky shore ramble on one of the Kiama headlands. Unfortunately the tide was too high to see too many organisms, but we did find some interesting creatures and we saw some whales off the point”. SCMDC staff continue to raise the Centre’s profile beyond Eden by attending such conferences as well as open days, fairs and markets.

Associate Members elect Delegate

SCMDC Associate Membership has now reached 67 members with the Inaugural Meeting being held on 12th November 2012. A good number of Associate Members were able to attend the Meeting where the election for a Delegate to the Board took place. John Aveyard was duly elected and appointed to the SCMDC Board at its Meeting on 24th November. John has been involved with the Centre for many years, as the inaugural Board Chairman dating back to the years before we even had a building to work from. He has since been active as a trained Volunteer and is often seen helping out during the busy school holidays. John urges all Associate Members to contact him if they have any queries about any aspect of the operations of the Discovery Centre. He can be contacted on 02 6496 3605 or aveyardj@acr.net.au

Want to become an Associate Member? the more the merrier!!

Community members are welcome to join us as an Associate Member at any time. Just go to our website www.sapphirecoastdiscovery.com.au and click on the “Who We Are” tab and under the heading for Associate Members you will find the application form.

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ANU’s Research School of Earth Sciences Research Project

We are very excited at the moment to be hosting a group from ANU’s Research School of Earth Sciences on a project under the supervision of Dr Steve Eggins. The team includes PhD candidates Graham Nash and Kate Holland and a number of undergraduate students and they plan to be based in Eden for a few more weeks yet. Their story featured in a recent edition of the Eden Magnet. The team has been on the water collecting plankton samples with local fishing charters and were given an extra treat when well known local community member Peter (‘Mal’) Rankin took them out for a spin to see whales and dolphins.

Excerpt from Eden Magnet 29th November 2012 (By Amanda Stroud): Steve Eggins (PhD) leads the team. “We’re here in Eden trying to grow tiny zooplankton called foraminifera,” he says. “Why?” I ask. “We’re trying to find out how they respond to climate change, specifically to changes in temperature and also how they respond to increases in acidification in the oceans due to CO2 absorption. We want to know how this particular bug will survive. “There’s a study that suggests these organisms won’t be able to form their shells with increasing acidification and may not survive. We’re testing an alternative hypothesis that they’re more sensitive to temperature than acidity.”

Above – L to R: Graham Nash, Steve Eggins and Kate Holland hard at work in the lab.

Down one long side of the laboratory, large plastic tubs containing multiple glass beakers are growing the zooplankton at different temperatures and different water acidities. At another end of the lab, brine shrimp or sea monkeys are being grown to feed the zooplankton. “Nobody has ever grown this zooplankton before in the southern hemisphere,” Stephen Eggins says. “Eden is right on the doorstep of the southern ocean so it’s perfectly placed to get tropical samples of these plankton coming from the north and colder water southern ocean ones from down south.” With an impressive array of around $150,000 worth of equipment brought with them from Canberra, scattered around the lab, the research team look right at home. But they are also enjoying getting out on the water to collect their samples. It’s this type of ‘fieldwork’ that inspired research assistant and doctoral candidate Kate Holland to get into marine science.

Below:: The researchers gave local Mal Rankin a science lesson when he called in to check out what they were up to. “I went from Caroline Chisholm High School in Canberra to Tuggeranong College and then to ANU to study science. In the first year we got to do a field trip where we went out on a boat and that really grabbed me. I just thought it was so interesting that you can go into the field and do stuff. I’ve been down here a week. It’s great, the other day when we were collecting more of our plankton we saw whales and seals and dolphins - it was the best.”

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Proud supporter of the Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre

Did you know? Sharks can suntan We’ve all seen the movies where the sharks fin comes gliding through the water frightening all nearby but this is not common in the real world. There may be a very good reason why sharks usually do not expose their dorsal fins and backs above the water. An American shark biologist named Chris Lowe and his wife, Gwen Goodman-Lowe, discovered recently that at least some sharks — like people — actually sun-tan. A part of the sun's light called 'ultraviolet radiation' can actually penetrate the water up to a distance of about a metre with enough energy that it can cause skin damage to a human or shark; in response, the skin produces a dark pigment called melanin. Chris and Gwen demonstrated that young Scalloped Hammerheads (Sphyrna lewini) held in shallow-water outdoor pools actually tan in a few days. When Chris and Gwen covered part of the little hammerheads' skin with an opaque (non-see-through) patch, the only part of the shark that did not tan was that under the patch! This phenomenon has been observed in other shark species but has not been researched and proven until the work of Chris and Gwen.

Narooma students experience some Crazy Critters Feeling an elephant snail, holding a decorator crab and dancing like an anemone are just some of the fun activities that Narooma Public School students were able to experience during their recent visit from the Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre.

Two weeks ago our Marine Education Officer Jillian Riethmuller loaded up the car with a touch tank, dried specimens and exciting games and headed north to Narooma.

Jill set up in the school hall for the week ready to share her marine stories and knowledge with the entire school. She ran 16 Crazy Critter sessions over the 5 days and saw 350 students in that time.

Each session included story telling, fun facts, a bit of drama, dancing and a lot of hands on experiences. The students were able to feel live animals in the touch tank with the sea stars and crabs coming out as the clear favourites, especially the decorator crab which students had seen on the popular children’s TV show ‘The Octonauts’.

Jill said, “It was a very fun week and there are now lots of budding marine biologists in Narooma. Hearing the students tell you how they want to be a marine biologist just like you is very rewarding.”

The enjoyment wasn’t just for the students though. All the teachers that came along had fun and learnt something new as well. This is some of the feedback Jill received from the school:

“Jill had organised all the ‘critters’ and the range of species was excellent” “It was very hands on which kids love!” “Information and dance moves and drama to present information was an excellent idea” “Good discussion about living and non living things which matched our science unit” “It was an informative session that I had not experienced before at other schools” “The presenter used scientific language in a way that the children still understood the content”

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Mumbulla Foundation Supports SCMDC

A huge thanks to the Mumbulla Foundation, Bega Valley Shire’s Community Foundation, for providing us with a Grant to purchase a new MICROEye microscope and projector. Our first MICROEye was purchased with a Grant from the Fisheries Research Development Corporation (FRDC), which provided funding for every member of Marine Discovery Centres Australia to benefit from this amazing equipment.

As evidenced on a daily basis, our current MICROEye is so popular that we decided we needed another. This microscope is unique in that it has only two moving parts and is completely user-friendly for the very smallest of scientists. We hope to have our new improved version installed in the Discovery Centre in time for the coming holiday season.

SCMDC ANNUAL PASSES AVAILABLE NOW!!

FEES: Family (2adults + 3 children) $45 Extra child $5 each Adult (16+) $25 Pensioners/students $20

WHAT DO YOU GET? Unlimited Entry for 12 months to the Discovery Centre + 10% off retail stock + Buy 1 coffee & get the 2nd coffee FREE from Great White Bite Cafe

CONTACT KERRYN WOOD AT THE CENTRE TO PURCHASE YOUR PASS!

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Summer holiday activities

December 2012 – January 2013

The centre is open Tues – Sat 10am-3pm during the school holidays from 27th Dec 2012 till 1st Feb 2013

(excluding public holidays)

Bookings are essential as places are limited! To book, phone (02) 6496 1699 or email admin@sapphirecoastdiscovery.com.au

253 Imlay St Eden (Snug Cove Wharf) www.sapphirecoastdiscovery.com.au

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 23 Dec

24 Christmas Eve

25 Christmas Day

26 Boxing day

27 28 29

30

31

1 January

2 Bubble Painting 11:00am Fish Feeding 12:00pm

3 Marine Fossil Fun 11:00am Tsunami Demo 12:00pm

4 Critter Craft 11:00am Fish Feeding 12:00pm

5 Snorkel 8:30am Tsunami Demo 11:30am

6 7 8 9 Rocky Shore Ramble 12:00pm Fish Feeding 12:00pm

10 Rocky Shore Ramble 12:30pm

11 Fish Feeding 12:00pm Rocky Shore Ramble 1:00pm

12 Snorkel 8:30am Tsunami Demo 11:30am

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14 15 16 Bags of Fun 11:00am Fish Feeding 12:00pm

17 Ocean Origami 11:00am Tsunami Demo 12:00pm

18 Seashell Frames 11:00am Fish Feeding 12:00pm

19 Snorkel 8:30am Tsunami Demo 11:30am

20 21 22 23 Rocky Shore Ramble 12:30pm

24 Rocky Shore Ramble 1:00pm

25 Rocky Shore Ramble 1:30pm

26 Australia Day

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All activities are $8 and recommended for ages 4 and up

Activity Descriptions:

Rocky Shore Rambles: Join a marine scientist exploring the amazing diversity of life found on our rock platforms. Any age 1.5 hours Adults $10 Children $8 Family $35 Min. 4 participants. Subject to weather conditions. Snorkel Tours: Discover our underwater world in a safe and fun environment along the beautiful Sapphire Coast. Cost includes snorkel, mask and fin hire. Wetsuits are available in limited sizes. Ages 12+ 2hours $25 per person Max. 8 participants. (minimum cost $100 per snorkel tour) Bubble Painting: Design your own underwater scene with bubbles whilst learning about the science of bubbles. Marine Fossil Fun: Make your very own marine fossil whilst learning about ancient marine creatures!

Critter Craft: Build a marine critter to take home using recyclable materials. Bags of Fun: Decorate your very own bag using stamps, paint and your imagination. Ocean Origami: Learn to fold your own ocean animal and make one to take home. Seashell Frames: Decorate your own cardboard picture frame with a selection of local shells!

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VOLUNTEERS...volunteers...VOLUNTEERS...volunteers...VOLUNTEERS.... Volunteers are a special and integral part of any community based not-for-profit organisation, not least the SCMDC. Aware of the need for a well planned, organised and professionally trained, committed and energetic group of people, we will soon be conducting volunteer recruitment, orientation and training for new and existing volunteers.

If you would like to join us & for further information, please contact Kerryn Wood on 02 6496 1699 or email at kerryn.wood@sapphirecoastdiscovery.com.au

Our Marine Scientist & Teacher Sheree Epe

enjoyed teaching some mini marine scientists from Eden Child Care

Centre this month.

WEB CHECK This edition’s recommended websites.

Check these out! (hover your mouse over the link for instructions)

http://www.youtube.com/user/scmdc77 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV6FnboxC9E