Investigating life in the sea – question bank

An inquiry approach is a method often used in science education. This question bank provides an initial list of questions about life in the sea and places where their answers can be found.

The article, Investigating life in the sea – introduction, has links to further resources and student activities.

Q. How could you decide if an organism is a plant or an animal?

• Classifying marine organisms

Q. Why is a food web a better description than food chain for how organisms interact with each other for food?

• Understanding food webs

• Marine food webs

Q. What’s the difference between a food web and an ecosystem?

• Marine food webs

• Marine ecosystem

• Key terms

Q. What do food web diagrams illustrate? What do the arrows mean?

• Marine food webs

Q. What is special about a keystone species?

• Marine food webs

• Sea stars

• Understanding food webs

Q. What can happen if a species is removed from a food web?

• Impact of freshwater on cockles

• Understanding food webs in Fiordland

Q. Why would scientists want to tag an animal?

• Why tag a starfish?

• Tagging sea stars

Q. How do humans affect life in the sea?

• Estuaries and farmland run-off

• Human impacts on marine environments

• Our role in ocean acidification

Q. Why are estuaries important?

• Marine habitats

• Cockles

• Farmland run-off into estuaries

Q. Why do you think it’s important for scientists to collaborate?

• Working as an ecologist

• Dr Candida Savage

• Assoc Prof Abby Smith

Q. What is environmental forensics? How can it help us to learn about life in the sea?

• Environmental forensics

Q. Which adaptations do you think are most important for sea star growth and reproduction?

• Sea star adaptations: the dorsal view and the ventral view

• Sea stars

• Marine organisms and adaptations

Q. How are our New Zealand marine ecosystems managed?

• Looking at ecosystem-based management (EBM)

• Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge

• Environmental thinking and planning with ecosystem-based management (EBM)

Q. How do we measure human impacts on the marine environment?

• Identifying marine stressors

• Investigating marine and costal tipping points

• Modelling marine stressors and tipping points

Q. What important marine discoveries are scientists exploring?

• Kina and the blue economy

• Extracting bioactives from mussels

• Sea sponges and rongoā