Reef HQ Programs | Students | Reef Guardians | GBR Explorer | Visual Library | Reef Beat |



Home  »  Reef HQ Programs Overview  »  The Living Classroom  »  Reef Ecology

Reef Ecology

Middle School and Senior Secondary

In this Reef HQ Education Program students explore the ecology of the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem. Gain an appreciation for the diversity of life it contains, and the evolutionary processes that have shaped the plants and animals that exist there today.

Curriculum links

Completing this Reef HQ Education Program will develop students' ability to:

  • Evaluate the contribution of environmental factors to change within populations and communities;
  • Relate the patterns of distribution of organisms to their requirements;
  • Identify or critically analyse various types of special associations that may occur between organisms within communities, such as symbiosis;
  • Construct diagrammatic representations of food webs, on the basis of observed or inferred feeding relationships;
  • Compare communities in terms of their biotic and abiotic characteristics;
  • Describe the types of interactions that occur between living and non-living components of the ecosystem;
  • Interpret data pertaining to the ways in which matter and energy move in an ecosystem;
  • Predict the effects on the natural environment of activities associated with industrialised human societies;
  • Evaluate modern scientific evidence for the process of biological evolution; and
  • Analyse examples of evolutionary events.

The following unit includes suggestions for activities that can be completed before and after your Reef HQ visit.

Reef HQ Visit

This teacher resource is linked to a class visit to Reef HQ. The Reef HQ visit will enable students to:

  • Explore the complexities of reef ecology within a closed system;
  • Analyse the intimate associations that occur between species;
  • Investigate the process of biological evolution and analyse examples of evolutionary events;
  • Develop hypotheses linking adaptations of organisms to both biotic and abiotic components of their surroundings; and
  • Gain an appreciation for the effects human activities may have on the ecology of communities.

Video & Image Library
movie  WOW Factors

Attached Documents

You may need Acrobat Reader for some of the following documents.
Get Acrobat Reader
Get Acrobat Reader
Dichotomous Key - Challenge Activity
File size: 801k
Ecological Evolution - Challenge Activity
File size: 732k
Niche Concept - Challenge Activity
File size: 735k
Reef Diversity - Challenge Activity
File size: 2666k
Reef Ecology - Challenge Activity
File size: 720k
Reef Ecology - Teaching Unit
File size: 716k
Taxonomy - Challenge Activity
File size: 833k