This challenging activity book addresses many essential skills and knowledge contained in the National Science Teachers Association standards. The activities are focused on the exciting environment of a coral reef, its inhabitants, and the ways these inhabitants have adapted to their world. Gifted and advanced learners in grades 2-3 are provided opportunities to take "real world" action to help protect the environment. Rubrics and answer keys are provided to help assess student work. Book jacket.

This book is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Charles Sheppard, Professor of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick. Prof. Sheppard has worked extensively for a wide range of UN, governmental and aid agencies in tropical marine and coastal development issues. This conversation explores how Prof. Sheppard is trying to find a way through political shortsightedness, corporate greed and societal indifference to use his experience to make the planet a better place. This carefully-edited book includes an introduction, All Too Relevant, and questions for discussion at the end of each chapter: I. Watery Beginnings - The power of scuba diving II. Building A Reef - Coral, algae and time III. Gratuitously Unsustainable - The problem with humans IV. Towards Progress? - Leadership, policies and philanthropic foundations V. Climate Change - Two pernicious effects VI. What To Do? - The importance of marine spatial planning About Ideas Roadshow Conversations: This book is part of an expanding series of 100+ Ideas Roadshow conversations, each one presenting a wealth of candid insights from a leading expert through a focused yet informal setting to give non-specialists a uniquely accessible window into frontline research and scholarship that wouldn't otherwise be encountered through standard lectures and textbooks.

Like many coral specialists fifteen years ago, Veron thought Australia's Great Barrier Reef was impervious to climate change. Then he saw for himself the devastation that elevated sea temperatures can inflict on corals.

Examines some of the protective methods, such as camouflage, regenerating parts of their bodies, and travelling in schools, used by creatures living near coral reefs.

Reef ecosystems extend throughout the tropics. Exploited by small-scale fishers, reefs supply food for millions of people, but, worldwide, there are growing worries about the productivity and current state of these ecosystems. Reef fish stocks display many features of fisheries elsewhere. However, habitat spatial complexity, biological diversity within and among species, ecosystem intricacy and variable means of exploitation make it hard to predict sustainable modes and levels of fishing.