Marine Studies BRUV 2017

Thank You Harvey Norman Albany

The school would like to thank Harvey Norman, Albany for their very generous donation of equipment to the new BRUV Program that we will be running at Little Grove Primary School.

The BRUV (Baited Remote Underwater Video) Program is being co-ordinated by Mr Davies in collaboration with UWA and Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (previously Department of Fisheries).

The program will identify local marine species and collect data that will be available and used worldwide.

The process involves the use of underwater   cameras set on a baited station in the harbour (most likely at Rushy Point). The station is left for a certain length of time, then students will view the footage and record species, numbers and other data, like time of day, temperature, tide and other environmental conditions.

This is a great way for our school to become more involved with our local environment whilst learning valuable hands on science skills.

This fabulous donation of a GoPro Hero, Underwater Action Camera, External Hardrive and SD Cards from Harvey Norman (2017)  will allow us to commence trials of the program before it starts in earnest in 2018.

December 2017

Room 8  B.R.U.V. Trial  (Baited Remote Underwater Video Trial)

Wow !  Everyone was super excited to see the results of the Room 8 BRUV Trial on Monday.  The vision captured on our new underwater cameras was shown on the classroom’s interactive white board to enable the students to identify and tally species that came into view.  The amount of fish drawn to the bait over a half hour time period was amazing to see.  The students really enjoyed setting up the observation frame, collecting data and recording conditions at the foreshore.  A big thank you to Mr Davies for co-ordinating this exciting project for our school.  We all look forward to seeing the results of all the data collected during 2018.

Thank you to Molly for the following report:

On Monday 11/12/17, Room 8 conducted a Baited Remote Underwater Video Trial (BRUV). We tried two locations to see the diversity and abundance of species: sea grass and sand.

A group of the top swimmers took a frame with a 4k camera out to place it on the seagrass for 30 minutes.

The other students were cockle sampling close to the shore line.  Mrs Jose was there along with Kylie from the Department of Fisheries and Mr Davies.

After half an hour, the same group of swimmers went back out to change the location of the frame and bait bag to the sand.

We discovered that there was a vast amount of King George Whiting and Bream in the seagrass and more Sand Whiting in the sand.

We all thank Mr Davies and Kylie for organizing this experience and next year’s Fives and Sixes will have a guaranteed fun time.