The Horse 2020/21

Environment & Technology

Reflection - Coral Reefs

We have chosen the topic coral Reefs. This because corals are an important part of our lives and almost nobody knows that they are dying out. Our goal for this project is to create awareness. We all need oxygen to live, but most of us don't even know where we get our clean air from, not to mention how to keep up this standard of living. So, what we want to do is inform. So that afterwards we know how to keep our air clean.

At first, we wanted to calculate how much oxygen is produced by the coral reefs and how much by a normal tree to do a comparison. However, this has proven to be quite difficult. 

In the beginning Naomi and Me had difficulties to divide the work, in order to make faster progress. But in the last weeks we have improved more and more.

Altogether on a scale from 1 to 10 we would say that we are on a 7.

But we think next time it would be helpful to organize everything more properly in the beginning.

Research - Coral Reefs

A city tree, in our example a full-grown oak tree, absorbs 5-6 tons of carbon dioxide per year and produces about 4 tons of oxygen through photosynthesis. This is the amount of oxygen absorbed by 4 people in a year.

We are still thinking about how we can compare this data with corals, as they are different in size from trees.

What we do know is that all the coral reefs produce more oxygen than all trees. The Reefs produce up to 70% of the oxygen on earth.

 

But what exactly is a Coral?

The coral is a unique and complex creature. It belongs to the family of jellyfish and anemones.

 

Reefs in general

Now I want to talk about the reefs in general. But first how did we proceed with our research? First of all, we visited many different websites. We looked for as much information about coral reefs as possible. After that we collected all the information we could find and decided on the most important one to mention quickly in our presentation. Above all we wanted to show what the problems are and how we can change them.

Now to the found information:

  • Why are Coral reefs so important?

70% of the oxygen you breathe comes from the ocean. Reefs are the foundation of ocean health and without them, marine life would stop to exist. No coral reefs, means no oxygen from the ocean. And you can think about what that would lead us to…

  • How are we destroying coral reefs?

Threats are caused by human activity, including pollution, sedimentation, unsustainable fishing methods, single-use plastic, chemicals in sunscreens and climate change. All those factors increase the ocean temperatures and leads to ocean acidification. Many of these threats can stress corals, resulting in coral bleaching and possible death, while others cause physical damage to these sensitive ecosystems.

Corals can recover from bleaching events when conditions improve before they die, although it can take many years for ecosystems to heal completely.

  • How can we help the reefs?

There are already charities that dedicate their lives to saving the reefs. You can donate directly to them or volunteer and help to save the reefs.

Support renewable energy, eliminate all one-way plastics, switch to reef safe sun protection and don't buy pesticides for your grass!

Ultimately, as consumers, we must stop supporting companies that produce harmful products or chemicals that contribute to the death of our reefs. There are healthy alternatives to all things.

Attached you can also find a video of how the world would look like in 50 years if we dont change anything right now. 

A city tree, in our example a full-grown oak tree, absorbs 5-6 tons of carbon dioxide per year and produces about 4 tons of oxygen through photosynthesis. This is the amount of oxygen absorbed by 4 people in a year.

We are still thinking about how we can compare this data with corals, as they are different in size from trees.

What we do know is that all the coral reefs produce more oxygen than all trees. The Reefs produce up to 70% of the oxygen on earth.

 

But what exactly is a Coral?

The coral is a unique and complex creature. It belongs to the family of jellyfish and anemones.

Reefs in general

Now I want to talk about the reefs in general. But first how did we proceed with our research? First of all, we visited many different websites. We looked for as much information about coral reefs as possible. After that we collected all the information we could find and decided on the most important one to mention quickly in our presentation. Above all we wanted to show what the problems are and how we can change them.

Now to the found information:

  • Why are Coral reefs so important?

70% of the oxygen you breathe comes from the ocean. Reefs are the foundation of ocean health and without them, marine life would stop to exist. No coral reefs, means no oxygen from the ocean. And you can think about what that would lead us to…

  • How are we destroying coral reefs?

Threats are caused by human activity, including pollution, sedimentation, unsustainable fishing methods, single-use plastic, chemicals in sunscreens and climate change. All those factors increase the ocean temperatures and leads to ocean acidification. Many of these threats can stress corals, resulting in coral bleaching and possible death, while others cause physical damage to these sensitive ecosystems.

Corals can recover from bleaching events when conditions improve before they die, although it can take many years for ecosystems to heal completely.

  • How can we help the reefs?

There are already charities that dedicate their lives to saving the reefs. You can donate directly to them or volunteer and help to save the reefs.

Support renewable energy, eliminate all one-way plastics, switch to reef safe sun protection and don't buy pesticides for your grass!

Ultimately, as consumers, we must stop supporting companies that produce harmful products or chemicals that contribute to the death of our reefs. There are healthy alternatives to all things.

Attached you can find a video that shows how the world would look like if we don't change anything right now. 

Experience, Survey - Coral Reefs

We did a short survey where we asked 86 people some questions about coral reefs. 

  1. The first question was about whether you have ever seen a coral reef with real eyes. With this question we wanted to find out how many people know how impressive a coral reef can be. From 41 people 15 answered with YES and 26 with NO.
  2. The second question was what comes to mind first when you think of a coral reef. As you can see here most of them answered with snorkelling. But many also thought of fish in the sea or the Great Barrier Reef.
  3. In the third question we asked the participants if they know what benefits corals have for us. From 41 people 18 answered here they do not know. 12 mentioned oxygen productions and the remaining 11 mentioned other things like the habitat.
  4. The 4th question was: Do you know of any organizations that work to protect coral reefs? In this question 24 people answered YES, which is almost 60%. Personally, I was surprised, because I always thought that many people do not know about the extinction of coral reefs
  5. Our 5. Question was: which of the following organizations do you know. It was very surprising for us that so many of the interviewers knew the organizations. We did not expect that more than 10 people know the OCEANA and Great Barrier Reef Legacy.
  6. The next question was: What do you think, how much oxygen is produced by Coral Reefs. All respondents have chosen a value greater than 0. This is certainly due to our question, where it was clear that corals produce oxygen.
  7. Next, we asked when they think, coral reefs will be extinct. Most of the people are have the same opinion here. 85% have chosen 30 years, which also agrees with the truth. Only five think that it will still take 60 years and 1 thinks 90 years.

Attached you can also find the results of our survey in a pdf file where you can find some diagrams.

1_Powerpoint Coralreefs.pdf (565.26 kb)

Social Media - Coral Reefs

We have chosen the topic corals. This because corals are an important part of our lives and almost nobody knows about their extinction. Our goal for this project is to create awareness. We all need oxygen to live, but most of us don't even know where we get our clean air from, not to mention how to keep up this standard of living.

70% of the oxygen you breathe comes from the ocean. Reefs are the foundation of ocean health and without them, marine life would stop to exist. No coral reefs, means no oxygen from the ocean. 

 

REMINDER -=>Categories are the bones of The Horse

Exciting projects in the context of city climate & city trees are in development or "growing"; each project team as well as all collaboration teams get their own category. Here you collect all material, text, media, etc. for sharing with others and later for your publication on the website dontwastemy.energy.

The journey of discovery is underway!

Our Project: Social media

Land plants only produce 1/3 of the oxygen we breathe, the rest comes from the ocean. The dying of the coral reefs affects all species from marine life to humankind. We would like to get to know more about how corals affect us in our daily life. Isn't it worth it to safe the coral reefs for our own safety?

This is what Esosa and I would like to discuss in our project: Oxygen generated by the ocean.

[Please always use the File manager for your photos in the future. TechNick.]

Input by a Biologist and ocean activist regarding coral reefs

  1. „Oxygen generated by the ocean“

The post suggests (incorrectly) that coral reefs produce O2.
Trees are plants that produce O2 (Even trees need O2 to breathe, they just produce much more than they use.).

Corals are colonies of animals that need oxygen to breathe. They live in an inner symbiontic (give and take) relationship with tiny green algae which are „microscopic plants“, producing O2 and food for the coral...

- Oceans do provide the planet with most of its oxygen – but it’s not the coral reefs that are producing it!More...

Oxygen generated by the Ocean

In Our Project, Esosa and I would like to know more about the coral reefs.

Land plants only produce 1/3 of the oxygen we breathe, the rest comes from the ocean. The dying of the coral reefs affects all species from marine life to humankind. We would like to do a comparison to a City Tree in Zürich and calculate the amount of oxygen which is produced by the tree compared to the corals in the ocean. Further we would like to get to know more about how exactly corals affect us and the air we breathe. Another aim is to get in touch with an Organisation who deals with replanting of corals and the restauration of coral reefs. We also thought about covering some other questions. For example, how to prevent all coral reefs from becoming extinct by 2050, or is it possible to restore the riff like before and are there any statistics that show how the reef is doing at the moment?

Oxygen generated by the ocean - Coral Reefs

In Our Project, Naomi and I would like to know more about the coral reefs.

Land plants only produce 1/3 of the oxygen we breathe, the rest comes from the ocean. The dying of the coral reefs affects all species from marine life to human kind. We would like to to do a comparison to a City Tree in Zürich and calculate the amount of oxygen which is produced by the tree compared to the corals in the ocean. Further we would like to get to know more about how exactly corals affect us and the air we breath. Another aim is to get in touch with an Organisation who deals with replanting of corals and the restauration of coralreefs. We also thought about covering some other questions. For example how to prevent all coral reefs from becoming extinct by 2050, or is it possible to restore the riff like before and are there any statistics that show how the reef is doing at the moment?