Marine Discovery Centres Australia

Web site: http://www.woodbridge.tased.edu.au/mdc

The Wood­bridge Marine Dis­cov­ery Cen­tre chal­lenges stu­dents of all ages to learn about, dis­cover and care for the marine envi­ron­ment through diverse shore and sea based programs.

Built out over the waters of the D’Entrecasteaux Chan­nel, the Cen­tre is in the ideal loca­tion to help Tas­man­ian stu­dents learn about their marine envi­ron­ment. The Chan­nel is a var­ied, shel­tered and safe water­way with unin­hab­ited islands, an inter­est­ing his­tory and fas­ci­nat­ing marine ecology.

In 1979 a Marine Stud­ies Cen­tre was started in Wood­bridge by a group of peo­ple, who loved the sea and wanted Tas­man­ian stu­dents to share in that pas­sion. Headed by Allis­ter Mar­tin, a teacher at Wood­bridge School, the group secured fund­ing from the Fed­eral Gov­ern­ment to trans­form a local scal­lop shed into an edu­ca­tional facil­ity.  It quickly became an inte­gral part of the Tas­man­ian edu­ca­tion expe­ri­ence and was taken over by the Tas­man­ian Depart­ment of Education.

The Cen­tre houses fully equipped teach­ing areas, an aquar­ium room, marine pond, touch tanks and lots of dis­plays as well as a large col­lec­tion of cool tem­per­ate marine species. The Cen­tre also has its own 13.5m research ves­sel, the Peng­hana, and a marine farm­ing lease.

Inter­ac­tive pro­grams are avail­able for stu­dents from Kinder­garten to Year 12.

Pri­mary classes under­take a wide vari­ety of activ­i­ties both in the Cen­tre and along the fore­shore. Amongst other things,  pri­mary stu­dents may exam­ine the diver­sity of inver­te­brates found in the Chan­nel, inves­ti­gate what lives in the inter­tidal zone, per­form exper­i­ments into the effects of marine pol­lu­tion, or make marine-inspired art works

The RV Peng­hana pro­vides an excel­lent float­ing class­room for sec­ondary stu­dents to explore the Chan­nel envi­ron­ment in more depth. It is fully equipped with up-to-date GPS, radar and sonar equip­ment as well as oceano­graphic and bio­di­ver­sity sam­pling equip­ment, a vari­ety of fish­ing tech­nolo­gies and an under­wa­ter video cam­era. In the Cen­tre sec­ondary stu­dents study the live spec­i­mens look­ing at how they fit into the Chan­nel food web and how they are adapted to their environment.

Staff at the Cen­tre run pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment sem­i­nars for teach­ers, take part in Com­mu­nity events and run School Hol­i­day activ­i­ties.  Out­reach pro­grams are also taken to other parts of the state.

The Cen­tre is keen to involve stu­dents in sci­en­tific research and has close links with sci­en­tists from the Uni­ver­sity of Tas­ma­nia, CSIRO Marine & Atmos­pheric Research, the Tas­man­ian Aqua­cul­ture & Fish­eries Insti­tute, as well as the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Division.