Day 42
1st December 2021
The Mighty Weed
Today at Ocean School, we learnt all about seaweed.
But before this, we did the sweetest little exercise.
Everyone was handed a card at random and they each took turns reading out their card.
They were beautiful affirmations, illustrated with animal & plant life.
Such a lovely way to start the class & remind the children to be respectful of their world & to know they are also loved & important.
Next, we were asked if we were afraid of seaweed.
I said no, but immediately had a flashback of screaming & thrashing after a strand of it touched my leg.
I remember really hating it. Strange. 🤔
As Mila pointed out,
“It could have something dangerous hiding in it.” Yikes!
First up, we read from the book, ‘With A Little Kelp From Our Friends.’
We compared seaweed to a land plant, and learnt all the different parts.
Seaweed grows so fast because the whole plant can take in nutrients, as opposed to regular plants that take in nutrients only through the roots.
Take A Breath
Next, we were asked to take a breath.
Then a second breath.
Our second breath was given to us by seaweed!
Did you know that HALF the world’s oxygen is produced by marine algae?
Seaweed Power
Seaweed has 10 times more calcium than milk!
It’s packed with vitamins, & hard-to-find minerals like iodine, and contains protein. In fact, seaweed is a better source of protein than eggs.
Seaweed also has more vitamin C than oranges!
A friend of ours got us into eating seaweed a few years back. I buy the rolled-out nori seaweed from the supermarket, cut it into quarters and put it into the kids’ lunch boxes.
They LOVE it.
Ocean Farming
I loved learning about this!
Unlike farms on the land, ocean farms do not need fresh water or fertiliser.
Farmers grow seaweed on large ropes that go down to the sea floor.
Among the seaweed they can farm oysters, crayfish mussels and scallops.
What a great way to rebuild the forest! And oysters can filter up to 100 litres of seawater each day by taking in excess nitrogen. Bonus!
Dory
When they came out, they were pumped!
“Mum, we saw Dory!!”
“There were millions of them, they were all around the place.” Said Mila.
I’ve never known the actual name of Dory, so I looked it up.
Turns out there are a few different names, but the most common are Royal Blue Tang, or the Regal Tang.
They also saw a stingray, and a jellyfish.
Oh, and surprise surprise, the sun came out!
Equalise
Today’s class was pitched pretty high.
I was impressed.
They learnt about the inner ear, and what happens when you’re diving deep into the sea.
They learnt they needed to equalise the pressure in their ear so they can dive deeper. (Deeper! 😬)
They learnt a fairly complicated technique.
When we got home, we looked up how to equalise on YouTube.
Watch Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKncWXkmiys
Escape The Box
The kids wanted to watch this video which had a picture of a diver at the bottom of a pool.
It was SUCH A GREAT MESSAGE!!!
And so timely with our homeschool journey.
It’s not easy to leave the institution & go against the ‘society norm’.
We do, have doubt.
We don’t know if we’re ‘doing it right’ or where we’ll end up.
But you know what?
We know we want something other than the box.