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School children from Toliara continue their annual education vist to ReefDoctor
Feb 10, 2012
Kids excited about Coral
What is the collective noun for a group of children? A gaggle?A giggle?A scribble?A squabble?And what about a group of children on the beach…?A scramble?
Why am I asking this question? Well, it ran through my mind on Tuesday afternoon as I watched a babble of eight to ten-year olds running down the beach in front of ReefDoctor, tossing off their clothes every which way like confetti and plunge shrieking into the water. As they splashed, pushed and pulled at each other with slightly hysterical abandon I was on high alert for the first injury.
Five minutes I think was all it took before a darling and highly precocious little girl wearing a sparkly turquoise two-piece swimming costume replete with frills, came limping out of the shallows.
“Madame, c’est pas grave…. Maisc’est mal.” Sheproffered her big toe to me, so that I might get a good look at the little cut. She took the sting of the alcohol and Betadine like a real trooper, unlike the next little boy who gripped his wrist as though his hand were about to fall off as I cleaned out a shell-inflicted scrape on his palm.
All patched up and proud of their sea-given grazes we were finally ready to get on with things.
For it turns out that every year ReefDoctor welcomes a group of children from the College Francais in Tulear for an afternoon of educational activities. This year we had twenty-one of them, and Christina had organised a seriously cool activity to help them understand the importance of zooxanthellae; the algae that lives in a symbiotic relationship with corals and provides them with food and their colour.
We shepherded the squawking group up the beach (once they had been herded back into their clothes), from which they each collected items that they thought belonged to something that had lived in the ocean. We showed them into the museum where we talked a little bit about living shells and their role in the marine ecosystem and about dead corals and shells as important beach builders.
Up at the IHSM building the children made piles of the objects that they had collected, sorting them into groups of shells, coral, and algae. Bleached bits of turtle carapace engendered wide eyes.
Christina started telling them about the coral reef. We soon realised that these boisterous tots knew far more than we had given them credit for.
They could name types of coral; rose coral, mushroom coral, brain coral and table coral. We looked at each other in alarm – was our little activity going to be too simplistic?
We explained that a reef was like a city, with polyps creating ‘buildings’ to live in; their skeletons.
“But what happens when the polyp grows up? What happens if it gets too big?”
Good question, little girl with the serious eyebrows.
“They can split into two new polyps.”
“Like a mummy when she wants to have a baby?”
“Yeees… Something like that (!)”
But once we had split them into groups and armed each with handfuls of pencils and a big sheet of paper they were captivated, engrossed in the drawing of coralline shapes, riveted in that inimitable way that only children occupied with a creative task can be, and the awkward questions soon died down.
They were to draw the outline of a coral reef, without colour. Was this reef alive or dead?Dead. Why? Because it has no colour, so the algae has gone and the coral can’t make enough food anymore. But, Madame, can the algae come back again? Wow. Indeed it can, petit, indeed it can. These kids were not to be underestimated.
And so they revived the reef; colouring in their monochrome outlines with hues and tints that represented the life-giving function of the microscopic zooxanthellae.
After this, a quiz. In teams of two, eight questions to be answered against the clock.And more superbly intelligent questions throwing spanners in the works.
“How big is a polyp, Madame?”
“How old are the reefs?”
“Why are the corals on the beach now?”
Winning teams got a small prize, a book of their choice from a limited selection. But the biggest thrill of all was the dark, quiet little girl with the enormous, cheeky eyes who got full marks all by herself and chose my favourite book, the one about fairies. She will go far, that one.
Before they left they encountered the long-suffering Redneck (one of our team of hounds, for whom they coined the term ‘hangdog expression’) and had him cornered in a mass of patting, petting hands, warnings of fleas and ticks making not a blind bit of difference.
The interlude provided a good opportunity to spot ‘souvenirs’ that had somehow made their way into bags and pockets; shells, corals and pieces of the most impressive turtle shell; this despite our instructions that all beach items should be replaced where they were found.
“But why? Why can’t I take just a few?”
“Because the beach needs them, more than you do.”
“But why, Madame?”
“Because if we all take a piece of the beach home with us then soon there will be no beach left. And then what would happen?”
“It would disappear. And then would those trees disappear too?”
“Yes, petit.”
“And those houses too?”
“Yes, petit”
“And then me….? If the beach disappears, will I disappear too?”
Oh, why not drive the message home… “Yes, petit, we all will.”
And so we bid them adieu, hopeful that we had made some small difference in their pint-sized lives and quietly optimistic for the days when the future of our oceans would be determined by the adult versions of these indomitable, bright-eyed little people.
Alice Grainger
Dive Officer
May 2011
