The Mangrove Life - Session 4

For today’s session, we delved deeper into our inquiries and projects. For our group, we chose the following inquiries: 

  1. Can mangrove plants be grown in garden soil? 

  2. What is the relation between salinity and growth in mangrove plants?


And the following projects:

  1. Mangrove Adaptations

  2. Mangroves and Climate Resilience


The session began with our vocabulary words:




Then, we discussed some of the issues faced by the educators, and after, went ahead with the first speaker of the day, Jacob.

The three widespread types of mangroves in the region

                               
Jacob spoke about the local species of Mangroves in the Gladstone region, and how they’re differentiated from one another by the underside of the leaf. The milky mangrove leaf is glassy green, easily identified by its seeds/ berries which come in a heart shape. The yellow mangrove plants have a yellow tinge on the underside of their leaves.

We discussed milky mangroves in some detail due to their significance in aboriginal cultures:



Milky mangroves are used for fishing because they have a poison which stuns or suffocates fish. It can force them down river, making them easier to catch. The toxins produced are specific to the plant, and are  developed in areas with species of fish that are pets to those mangroves. 


Jacob also explained the dangers of invasive species, introduced by shipping. The deballasting of water caused seeds of clustering species of mangroves to spread, suffocating native species. This is exacerbated by dredging (digging deeper channels for larger ships to pass).


 

He then spoke about the effect this has on salt distribution, and how that can change the distribution of mangrove plants in a region:


 

Key

Green: Mangrove plants

Arrow: Movement of water


With this, we ended the first session, and started the talk by Ashley, who spoke about Biodiversity in Mangroves. The following topics were discussed:

  • Pneumatophores and salt management

  • Reason for decomposing/ rotting smell of mangroves: the smell comes from gasses that are taken up by the plant and used to make important chemicals

  • Types of mangroves plants: can be told apart by their root structures - eg, stilt, fingers, buttress, snakes, palm (all shapes of pneumatophores)

  • Uses of mangroves: wood, medicine (bark for skin sores/ nectar for fish stings/ worms for coughs/ smoke of green leaves for cleansing), fruit, fishing, safe space for fish/ clams/ molluscs, climate resilience (eg., can be a barrier against floods)

  • Destruction of mangroves: human development and pollution

  • Pollination in mangroves: done by birds like kingfisher, or by bees/ wasps

  • Growth in mangroves: don’t grow tall because of the low nutrient value of their environment


After the talks by the speakers, we discussed data stories and how to tell them. This was to help us put across our findings for the inquiry we chose.




We discussed that even no result is a result, and that it’s okay to change the process/ change the enquiry question in the middle. 


Then, Advaita (from The Pomegranate Workshop) shared some examples of how to represent data, e.g., drawings/ poetry/ theatre.




One of our students (Grishm, std. 9) wanted to make a flip book for their project, but found it hard to properly align the pages.


Next week, we will be presenting our findings and projects.






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