Final visit to the Villa: Conclusion to the Project

Presentation  of our project:

Exhibit of our work

Vote for Best Photo

The younger spectators were quite active in the voting

The winner is........

1. the turtle photo by Mrs. Barde (above)

2. the headless undersea photo by a friend of Agathe's

3. the  golden sunset photo by Quentin

Why don't you have a look at our photo galery & choose the one you prefer

Queensland: a coveted coastline

We used Queensland as a case study introducing a lesson on coastal environments.

The coast of Queensland is environmentally sensitive, because it combines areas of outstanding natural beauty and important economic activities.

The Great Barrier Reef, that stretches 2300km along the coast.

Surfers Paradise, on the Gold Coast. Almost 20 millions of tourists visit Queensland each year.

As these two pictures show, it is at the same time a very natural and a very artifical area, which makes the development and management of these shores very complex.

Lately industry has also developed along the coast, bringing threats such as increased marine traffic, oil spills, coral bleaching...

Abbot Point is becoming one of the largest bulk and coal ports in the world. The activities there include dredging, which is a major threat to biodiversity.

An increasing number of Australians move to live by the sea, some want to make a living out of it, but many consider that they also need to protect it, in order to maintain this very attractive way of life… and keep selling seashells by the seashore!

This is why sustainable development is central in Queensland’s economic development: the reef is constantly monitored, as the website www.reefbase.org shows:

Besides the government implements new strategies such as ecotourism: "an ecologically sustainable tourism with a primary focus on experiencing natural areas that fosters environmental and cultural understanding, appreciation and conservation", says the non-profit organisation Ecotourism Australia.

On the Australian coast, human activities, development and welfare depend on how the sea is considered: should it only be seen as a source of profit, or as an asset to humanity and biodiversity?

Scientific experimentations

En cas de pollution aux hydrocarbures des mers et océans, on utilise souvent des agents dispersants. Ce sont des tensioactifs : du liquide vaisselle concentré. Cela permet de diviser la nappe d'hydrocrabures et de la disperser dans le colonne d'eau grâce aux courants.
Voici deux béchers : ils contiennent de l'eau et de l'huile ; dans celui de droite ont été ajoutés des tensioactifs.

Les matières organiques constituent la principale source de pollution de l'eau qui avoisine les milieux urbains. Nous avons choisi de déterminer la concentration en dioxygène dissous dans l'eau de l'Huveaune et l'eau de mer afin de voir si ces eaux étaient polluées, à la date des prélèvements, par les matières organiques. En effet, la décomposition par les bactéries des matières organiques entraine une diminution de la concentration en dioxygène des eaux.

Réactions entre le dioxygène dissous et les ions manganèse (II) :

 Titrage de l'échantillon par les ions thiosulfate en présence de thiodène :

Résultats :

Origine de l’eau	Volume versé à la burette (ml)	Teneur en dioxygène (mg/L)	Qualité de l’eau
Huveaune à la Valentine	13,8	10,6	excellente
Huveaune à son embouchure	16,4	13,1	excellente
Eau de mer au large	14,9	11,9	excellente

Une production personnelle d'Iheb Hallek. Une interprétation du film de Yann Arthus Bertrand : "La Méditerranée notre mer à tous".
http://youtu.be/0cumXbXCIw4


Mer Méditerranée - carte - FB Provence © Eric Gaba/Creative commons

Our visit to the villa Méditerrannée by Tiphaine

 This school year, we went to visit the villa Méditerrannée a lot of times. It is explained by the fact that we have a project called “City by the sea “ this year. Our trip to Belfast was also part of this project.

The visit of the villa Méditerrannée I liked the most was the last one. We watched a very inspiring movie, talking about the Mediterranean sea. I think that the main theme of this movie was sharing cultures. It showed us that we needed to learn to live together, to accept new cultures and strangers. We could see the sea from a social point of view, not an underwater point of view as we saw it during our last visits. It really made me think.

The afternoon, we participated to a sort of debate. Well, some of us participated. A man from a company called “Ifremer” told us about his job, and then, answered our questions. It wasn’t the part I liked the most, it was a bit too scientific in my opinion, but it was still interesting to learn some of the things he said. 

Outing at the Villa Méditerranée

Copyright. Yann Arthus Bertrand. France 2

On May 16th, the oib section and some other students went to an outing at the villa méditerranée.
In the morning, we saw an amazing movie of Yann Arthus Bertrand about the mediterranean sea. Indeed, it was a most interesting movie which told us the story of mediterranean peoples from the Antiquity to today. It also dealt with the water issue all around the sea and some of the strategies which are or were used by the different countries and peoples. It showed us a lot of countries such as Libya, Lebanon, France, Greece, Egypt...
The afternoon was, to me, less interesting, indeed, we had the intervention of a sea specialist of the Ifremer who used a lot of technical terms which I, most of the time, didn't understand. I guess it was more interesting for the students of the science project who had the chance to ask questions about the sea to specialists.

Our second visit

Copyright. Ifremer

When we went down to the  "Villa Méditérranée", we had the chance to attend a mini conference with an IFREMER specialist. IFREMER is a marine research organization and the specialist was able to answer almost all the questions about the sea we had prepared for him. I was very interested by the things he showed us. IFREMER does a lot of different things from plain scientific research to environmental protection. I learned that they were the ones to find the titanic, along with an American organization. I am very interested in marine biology and I thought the field trip was very useful for us.

http://wwz.ifremer.fr/webtv/Patrimoine/Titanic