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"Teaching people about the world in which we live."

Great Barrier Reef Story
by Lara Steele

Lara is a SCUBA diving instructor.  When she was 16 she was introduced to the sport and instantly feel in love with it.  She enjoys passing on her passion to others, especially teenagers.

The beautiful coral reefs that she has seen are one of the reasons that she loves to dive.  These reefs are colorful, diverse and important.  She was taught early on that you must never touch a reef when diving.  SCUBA diving is a strictly hands off process.  She teaches each of her students to admire the reefs without touching also.   Hopefully they take her word for it instead of finding out the way she did.

The first year she was diving was in Australia on the Great Barrier Reef, Lara had to learn the tricks behind doing a shore entry.  The worst part about a shore entry, for diving, is usually the sand and waves, but in this case it was the waves and coral reef.   This was many years ago, before the impact of walking on the reefs was fully understood.  Lara and her dive partner had to walk out on top of the reef, time the waves just right, jump into the water and kick away from the reef.

On one dive Lara and her partner did not time the jump right and as a result were crushed back against the reef wall by the waves.  The scratches and cuts from the wall stung, but didn't bleed openly so they finished their dive.  That night they noticed the infection starting as the faint scratches turned bright red and puffy.   The scratches hurt badly enough that they had to go to the doctor to be treated.   There they received a lecture on reef ecology and Lara learned that Coral was a living animal and that by brushing up against the wall she had probably killed the animal that was infecting her.

Since that lecture she has always been very careful to avoid touching the coral when she dives.  If she sees someone else destroying these beautiful reefs with their carelessness she is quick to point out the error of their ways to them.

Why do you think it is so important to Lara to teach her students not to touch the reef?  (Because of safety to the reef and to the divers)

Why do you think the scratches got infected?  (Because of micro-organisms in the reef)

Do you think she would walk across the top of a reef now?  Why or why not? (No, because it is hurting the reef to do so, laws protect the reefs. It was incorrectly thought at the time that the damage to reefs by walking on the top of them was minimal because that part of the reef was already dead.  Any part of the reef that grows high enough to stick out of the water dies when it is exposed at low tide.)

What does it mean to say that the reef is a living animal?  (Coral reefs are primarily made up of animals, not plants.)

What do you think makes up a reef? (Coral, fish, sand, algae, etc)

How does a reef recover and grow?  (healthy waters and plentiful food)

What else, besides touching, can hurt a reef? (pH balance of water being off, not enough sunlight, water temperature variations, etc.)

How do we affect the reefs? (by affecting the oceans we affect the reefs, dumping in the oceans, urinating in them, not recycling, nuclear waste dumping, etc.)