Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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Hello and welcome to stem stories with Mr Ewing today.
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We're gonna talk about a really cool area on Earth,
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and it's called the Great Barrier Reef.
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And the big problem is, it's dying.
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So we're gonna start talking about the birth water.
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And did you know that 70% of the earth is
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covered with water?
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The crazy part about that is only 5% of all
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the water and underneath beneath the water has been explored
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5% out of that hole, almost 2/3 of the Earth's
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water or the water surface.
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Now the area that we're gonna focus in is off
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our around the country of Australia, and it's called the
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Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
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Now it has, um, made up of 2900 little individual
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Reese and about 900 islands.
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It's off the coast of Australia around Queensland on, but
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it is the world's largest structure, made of of living
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organisms. That's right, it's living, and the coral reef is
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actually a lie.
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So how big is that?
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It's so big, you could actually see it from space,
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and that means it is 344,400 square kilometers or 134,634
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square miles.
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And you think, Mr Ewing, how big could that be?
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That's the size of 70 million soccer fields now, I
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would have said football fields.
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But since we're in Australia and soccer fields, and actually
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it's not even soccer, it would be football fields.
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But we're gonna call it soccer fields now.
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The crazy part is that we've got a big problem
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going on, because in that coral reef we have 1500
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species of fish, six different species of turtles.
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It's this amazing, amazing world underneath the surface of our
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water. Beautiful, beautiful area.
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Now why is it a concern?
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Well, it's a concern because the reef is dying.
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What's happening is because climate is changing, the water's air
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getting warmer, and as the waters get warmer, the coral,
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which is a living organism, starts to die, and it
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does something.
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It's called bleaching, and it's called bleaching because it goes
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almost completely white because the living organisms have died, leaving
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just the left over residue of the Rafe.
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Now we're also have a big problem because the water's
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air getting completely polluted from our trash now you know
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those 70 million soccer fields that we talked about of
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coral? Well, half of it is dead.
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That means 35 million soccer fields of coral is dead.
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Which also means all that life that exists in the
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coral reef is going to go and be affected by
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it. And they're gonna be dying as well.
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And it's mainly because our water's air getting warm.
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Now let's look at some of the effective wildlife.
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Our first is the crown of foreign thorns Starfish, one
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of the starfish specimens or species that is located there.
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And they're dying off because they're getting trapped in trash.
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We've got the box jellyfish.
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I mean, basically, they're getting replaced by plastic bags.
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It's kind of gross.
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We've got the long snout, snout, seahorses, another species that
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is trying to exist with all this trash in the
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water. We've got the Octopus C.
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She's the you know, they're they're dying because of the
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effects of this climate change in our pollution.
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We've got Wales.
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We've got the mantas, I mean, and I know that
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some of these pictures are hard to look at, but
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it's really important that we do look at pictures like
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this to see what's actually happening.
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Um, you know, because because of our lack of pride
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of earth and our disregard for recycling and products were
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actually part of the cause of our actually were the
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cause of all the species.
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What species dying.
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And I think that these air, these pictures of the
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ones that break my heart the most is the turtle
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species getting caught up in the nets from fishing.
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And even the birds and sea gulls.
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Pelicans on land are also getting affected by that.
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So, you know, the big question is, what do we
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do to fix this?
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And we need to rethink the way we use products
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in this world and how we recycle and how we
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reuse. There's a great place that you can go through
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the entry of Australia.
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Sorry. The continent of Australia, Australia has a website just
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for the Great Barrier Reef.
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It is the Great Barrier Reef.
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Uh, zoom in as my computer makes all kinds of
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noises. Um, and let's see, there we go.
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Um, it is the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority,
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and you can go here for all kinds of great
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information as well as things that you can do, um
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uh, to help change the environment.
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So let's look at what you can Dio.
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So what part are you going to play and fixing
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this huge problem before it's too late?
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I really want us to think about the impact and
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the role that we play on Earth and how little
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things that we do every day can have either a
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positive effect or a negative effect.
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So do some research go out.
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Uh, look at the sites, Jewel like search images of
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Great Barrier Reef.
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It is phenomenal.
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So go and