As part of an initiative with Korero o te Orau, Year 8 students were out on the reef on Wednesday with chairman Dr Teina Rongo, putting into action some of the marine monitoring techniques they were taught earlier in the week.

Dr Rongo said more and more of today’s kids were unfamiliar with the lagoon and how to monitor it to ensure its long-term protection.

“A lot of today’s parents are simply too busy working to do something like take their kids fishing out on the reef, hence why so many don’t have that type of knowledge.

“It is important that schools include things like this in their curriculum so they can learn about our reef and environment.

Student Tara Williams said she enjoyed the morning’s experience in the lagoon.

“We were each in groups and went offshore about 20m to survey the reef and lagoon and with the data we collected we will now be able to go back and analyse it.

“It was really fun to get down here and be out of the classroom learning here in the environment.”

Dr Rongo said the lagoon visit was part of a long-term collaboration with the school, with the expectation that Year 8 students will survey the same area of water to be able to start analysing trends across a number of years.