Bianca Engel is Deputy Head of Education at the Aquarium’s Environmental Education Centre.

Have you ever wondered what the living conditions of marine biologists and oceanographers might be aboard a research vessel, and what exactly they do? How about what it takes to keep all the inhabitants of the Two Oceans Aquarium happy?

Thanks to generous sponsorship from the French Consulate, on July 20, 2010 120 Grade 11 students from Steenberg and Oaklands secondary schools had the opportunity to go aboard the visiting French research ship Tara to view the working area of the ship and interact with the scientists who live and work there.

This visit, which was followed by a behind-the-scenes tour of the Aquarium, formed part of our Adopt-a-School programme and gave the students the chance to discover firsthand what being a marine scientist entails.

Tara, a 36-metre-long schooner sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme and agnes b (a French fashion company), embarked on a three-year voyage around the world in September 2009, called the Tara Oceans Expedition. 

The aim of the voyage, covering 150 000km through all the world’s oceans, is to explore sea life, with a particular emphasis on plankton and the effects of climate change on marine biodiversity. Plankton are microscopic organisms like viruses, bacteria, small plants (phytoplankton), zooplankton and fish larvae, and form the basis of most oceanic ecosystems. 

The Tara Oceans Expedition team, made up of an international group of oceanographers, biologists and ecologists, analyse the composition of plankton at different depths while monitoring the ocean chemistry. They are accompanied, and their journey followed, by journalists and artists both onboard and on land.

Tara’s stopover in Cape Town marks the end of her first year of exploration.

The students were enthralled by what they saw on the ship. “It’s amazing that even under these unimaginable circumstances and extremely compacted spaces, these researchers offer up numerous months away from home and their families in order to provide the world with this information. We were disappointed that there were only three female researchers onboard [however]. In our world today, we believe that women can be as successful as men have been in the past, in any career,” said Carinne English, a student at Steenberg High.

The behind-the-scenes tour of the Aquarium opened the students’ eyes to what it takes to make an aquarium function efficiently and in such a way to provide the best care possible for the animals. “It is remarkable to see the amount of care given to each and every animal here, the preparation of their different foods, and the huge role that everybody plays in order to keep things organised and running every day,” commented Warrick Leeman, another student from Steenberg High.

All the learners and educators agreed that the excursion was very innovative and they were inspired by the hands-on approach and interesting information that was shared with them. “None of us could say that we walked away from the experience and learned nothing. We hope that through this experience given to us, that we as human beings, who rely so much on our oceans for all sorts of things, will come to the realisation that we need to do so much more to secure our ocean creatures and not exploit all that we have left,” said Carinne and Warrick.

Click here for more information on our exciting school group activities.