Students were able to create a coral reef project on what they believe a coral reef looks like. Some students put fake sea creatures to show what type of life is in a coral reef. Others put shells, sand, even made coral out of clay, to symbolize what they think a coral reef looks like. In most projects, the students labeled the objects and what they do in their coral reef.

“I chose to do this because it enforces coral conservation to students. I want everyone to understand why we need to help the reefs and how biodiversity is important to us,” science teacher, Mrs. Karen Tripp, said.

A big part of the project was learning about coral bleaching. Coral bleaching occurs when corals are stressed by changes in conditions such as temperature, light, or nutrients, they expel the symbolic algae living in their tissues, causing them to turn completely white. To represent this, some students even painted some of their coral white.

“I learned about coral bleaching and how it affects the ocean and coral. The reason my project looks the way it does, is because it seemed like a more unique thing to do, to show the different types of coral. As well as, I painted some of the coral in my project white, to show what coral bleaching looks like,” freshman, Nico Carillo, said.