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On Wednesday, 3 March we celebrated World Wildlife Day 2021.
The theme this year was “Forests and Livelihoods: Sustaining People and Planet”.
Second class brainstormed what threats our global forests, forest species and ecosystems might be facing before exploring and investigating for themselves.
We were shocked to learn that per minute, an area the size of approximately 50 football fields are cut down! We also learned that since 1960 (in the last 61 years) half of the world’s tropical forests have been eliminated.
Later in the afternoon we learned all about sharks and how they are vital to a healthy, balanced ocean. Our teacher Ms Hickey, before becoming a teacher, was a marine biologist and worked with sharks. She showed us a set of jaws from a sandbar shark that she had collected on a trip to Natal Sharks Board in Durban, South Africa.
We also saw and felt some staghorn and brain coral from Indonesia.
Although sharks may look scary and intimidating with all of their teeth, we discovered they really are misunderstood and need protection against shark finning, illegal fishing, by-catch and trophy hunting.
Before school ended Ms Hickey had a surprise for us. We adopted a hammerhead shark from the World Wildlife Fund and received an adoption certificate, an information card, a photograph and a teddy. We have yet to name our 2nd Class mascot teddy 🙂
