Ocean Festival Fun
by Lois Nippard
Our guests had to walk through the massive mouth of a megalodon to find themselves on Bambou Beach. Here they were met with an underwater world. There were starfish cookies, blue candy floss, water slides, marine Olympics, face painting and the WiseOceans Underwater Discovery.
We kick-started the festival with a talk about how weird, wonderful and important marine life is. We talked about how we need the oceans to give us oxygen, how coral reefs slow down tsunamis, and how sea cucumbers breathe out of their bottoms. But we also spoke of how our oceans are in trouble. The scary amount of plastic waste that finds its way into the stomach of fish and tangled around marine life. So, we decided to bring the ‘coral reef’ onto the land and challenged our guests to head into our Underwater Discovery to help us find rubbish that didn’t belong. Each team entered into the ‘reef’ frantically looking for the trash. There was a discarded fishing net, a plastic bottle, a stray flip flop, a plastic bag blending in with the jellyfish, crisp packet, and the hardest to find of all – the infamous plastic cotton bud.
It was wonderful to see how seriously all our young guests took finding the rubbish. Truly dedicated to cleaning our oceans. We had proud parents thanking us for our efforts in inspiring their children.
“When we take the time to educate the next generation we can have every faith that they will carry on our hard work.”
