Por décadas, las poblaciones mundiales han emigrado cada vez más hacia las regiones costeras. Esta colonización de la costa por parte de los seres humanos ha dado como resultado que grandes áreas de lo que antes eran litorales rocosos, marismas salobres y ciénagas se convirtieran en un entorno alterado y construido para las personas. Además, con el constante aumento del nivel del mar, se están implementando defensas costeras para proteger a los pueblos y ciudades del agua de los océanos. Estas defensas están reemplazando los hábitats naturales que juegan un papel vital en el ciclo de vida de los peces, incluyendo: lugares de desove, criaderos y fuentes de alimento planctónico. Lo cual a su vez está afectando las poblaciones de peces en los océanos. Durante la última expedición de EarthEcho, Pesca sostenible: Desafío entre redes el equipo se reunió con la Dra. Louise Firth, profesora de Ecología Marina en la Universidad de Plymouth. Su estudio investiga maneras en las que podemos hacer espacio para la naturaleza en entornos dominados por humanos. En esta lección, los estudiantes obtendrán un entendimiento básico de la idea de que los hábitats específicos son esenciales en el ciclo de vida de algunas especies. Los estudiantes trabajarán a través del proceso de diseño en la ingeniería para construir una solución tipo “bio-bloque” que produzca un rompeolas que sea al mismo tiempo más amigable con la naturaleza y que proteja la costa contra inundaciones.

EarthEcho invites you to play along with us during “Snack-Sized Science”. These brief and interactive science demos with the EarthEcho team are meant to help your young-learners get excited to investigate the fascinating world of SCIENCE and hopefully explore more of EarthEcho’s digital resources...maybe even on their own! Join EarthEcho as we explore the anatomy of flowers! During this demonstration, you can follow along and dissect a flower from your own backyard. Learn the different parts of a flower and why they are important. You can even become a citizen scientist by exploring the website https://budburst.org. Get outside and explore the plants in your community today!

EarthEcho invites you to play along with us during “Snack-Sized Science”. These 15-minute interactive science demos with the EarthEcho team are meant to help your young-learners get excited to investigate the fascinating world of SCIENCE and hopefully explore more of EarthEcho’s digital resources...maybe even on their own! Snack-Sized Science: Chalk It Up to Ocean Acidification Join us as we dive into pH and ocean acidification. Get ready to play along with your own experiments as we guide you through this demonstration.

This calendar has been created by the EarthEcho International Youth Leadership Council. These youth, aged 16-22, designed this calendar to increase awareness and inspire behavior change to protect our collective future. The YLC invites you to use this calendar track and change your habits and, hopefully, provide monthly ideas to help you live a more sustainable, conscientious lifestyle.

Explore the fascinating connection between Florida manatees and powerplants. Take a deep dive into the history of Manatee Lagoon – An FPL Eco-Discovery Center®, an educational attraction located in Riviera Beach, Fla., and the adjacent Florida Power & Light Company Riviera Beach Next Generation Clean Energy Center. Learn about the role power plants play in this threatened species’ migratory habits and survival. This 45-minute event will take place on Friday, Friday 14th at 10 a.m. EST.

Commercial trawling has a devastating effect on biodiversity in areas where it has been used. Large commercial trawlers have been historically decimating both marine environments and significantly decreasing stock levels to a level at which they are unable to recuperate. The impact on communities sitting on the seafloor, known as benthic communities is devastating, the primary culprit being drag trawlers with beams of up to 12 meters, and several beams often deployed at the same time. This lesson looks at the effect of commercial trawling on both fish stocks and benthic community biodiversity. Students will understand relative sizes and impacts of large-scale fishing operations, and devise a plan to reduce the impacts of trawling. Students perform percentage calculations and analyze graphs.

In everyday life, students can be unaware of the impact of their food choices on the environment. Therefore, it is essential that students are educated in their food choices. If students cannot link their food to where it comes from, they are unlikely to make sustainable choices in the future. “Go Fish” aims to encourage students to start thinking about fish in the ocean and how fish stocks can change for the better or for the worse. In the educational game, cards will be selected by chance, so some students ‘oceans’ may be more successful than others. Students will complete a fishing log to monitor events of the game and reflect on the events that cause a change. By playing this game, students can come aware of the negative and positive actions that can take place to encourage fish stocks or declining fish stocks.

A fishery is a geographic region that contains a population of aquatic species which are a natural resource that needs to be managed. This management requires people from different backgrounds and in different fields, such as stakeholders, scientists, fisherpeople, government groups, and citizens. The goal of managing fisheries is to ensure that the different fish populations will be sustainable and a resource for now and future use. It can be a difficult thing to manage since people in different roles will have different priorities. Students will re-enact a fisheries management meeting by adopting the roles of various stakeholders in Plymouth (commercial fishers, recreational fishers, environmental groups, citizens, scientists, etc.) and advocate for a certain policy based on their role as a stakeholder.

Philippe Cousteau travels to Plymouth, England, one of Europe’s largest seafood exporters, to explore fisheries and the impacts these practices can have on the environment. Philippe joins Dr. Martin Atrill from the University of Plymouth out at sea to use a trawl net for a fish survey and to understand how data is collected and fish populations are monitored. Fish require balanced and healthy ecosystems in order to thrive and feed our growing population. Philippe joins Dr. Abigail McQuatters-Gollop to learn more about plankton the base of the food web that supports all fish.

Fish are a major food source for many of the world’s population, however, many fishing practices can be detrimental to the environment. One of these negative impacts is called by-catch. Philippe travels to the Plymouth Fishmarket to learn about quotas and how this can impact fish populations. Different fish species have different life cycles and histories, which is something that also needs to be taken into account in order to properly manage fish stocks. Impacts from mismanaged fisheries can be seen around the world, Philippe sets out to find out what is being done to protect this vital resource.