01 July 2025
Albany Senior High School students have taken to the field, researching the impact of heat on local seagrass.
Albany Senior High School students wrote a research paper on their findings.
The marine science program Year 8 to 10 students have investigated seagrass (Posidonia australis) for the past couple of years to understand the natural environment and seagrass meadows resilience under stressful high temperatures.
Coordinator, Brendan Goggins, said the project started after he wondered whether it would be possible to grow seagrass in aquariums.
“If we could simulate the natural environment and grow seagrass in the laboratory, we could control variables such as temperature and salinity and make predictions on how our seagrass meadows would cope under different environmental changes,” he said.
The students worked on methodologies, basing their approach off similar research conducted at Edith Cowan University on different seagrass species.
Year 10 student, Wilanie, said she loved being able to work on the research project and experiment with the seagrass.
Students measuring the seagrass.
“I wrote the methodology, along with Hayden, which included how we collected the data and how we used aquariums to acclimate the seagrass to their various temperatures,” she said.
The students took cuttings of the Posidonia from Oyster Harbour at Emu Point and transported them back to the lab where they weighed and measured each one to record a baseline for their experiments.
After the cuttings were planted into aquariums, students recorded the growth by making a small hole in a young leaf and then measuring the growth of that lead over time. They also changed the water temperature to see how that would affect the seagrass growth.
“I learned that seagrasses have different thermal tolerances even within the same species,” said Wilanie.
“This affects if and where a seagrass will survive in a marine heatwave event.”
Marine science students logged the data from their experiments.
Hayden, Year 10, said it was interesting, as the data and results could be seen in real time.
“The first thing I learned was that writing a scientific paper is more time consuming than one might think. The second thing I learned was that our results supported and contradicted separate papers,“ he said.
Students created a video and a research paper, which was submitted to the Australian Stockholm Junior Water Prize, where they had to explain their work to a panel of judges.
“My favourite part of the project was the discussion as it allowed me to explain and talk about our results in my own voice and tone,” said Hayden.
Mr Goggins said that the program builds the student’s confidence and presentation skills and has evolved into more than a high school project.
“[The program] is well regarded by marine scientists from Murdoch University, ECU and the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) who all sponsor the program and enjoy the student's presentations each year,” he said.
“Understanding and documenting marine cycles through this program puts our students at the forefront of emerging science in this field.”
Watch their research video on YouTube.
Read about their research here.
Learn more about their Marine Science Program.