On 5th June, some  of our awesome Brisbane Reef Ambassadors hopped on board the MV Inspiration, to learn more about the effects of micro-plastics on the ocean, and plankton life-cycles for World Environment Day.   The Moreton Bay Environmental Education Centre provides authentic education programmes from preparatory level to Year 12, allowing students, teachers and the community to develop relationships with the local area through immersion in natural, heritage and cultural education. They educate students about the environment from plankton in the oceans to koalas in the trees and everything in-between. They are currently running a project named Overboard and Underwater, which educates students about the dangers and ramifications of micro-plastics by examining the plankton life-cycle and explaining how even the smallest creatures in the ocean are affected by humans.   Robin Pickett and Jennah Williams were invited along for the day to take part and enjoy this fantastic learning opportunity. The voyage commenced with a safety briefing, an introduction to the program and the schedule for the day, before the team set off across Moreton Bay in the direction of St Helena Island.  En-route, Robin, Jennah and their travelling companions were told that over 8 billion tons of plastic waste ends up in the ocean every year, causing the deaths of tens of thousands of marine animals who ingest, become entangled in or are poisoned by this plastic.  Next on the agenda was a video on plankton, told from the viewpoint of a red snapper and highlighting huge diversity of micro-organisms there are! In fact in a single teaspoon you can have 1 million living creatures comprising of phyto- and zoo plankton.     Following the video it was time to get hands on. The plankton trawl net was lowered and drifted behind us for 5 minutes before being hauled in with help from eager participants, including Jennah!   Contents were concentrated in a collection tube and poured into a glass jar, then pipettes were used to make dot samples for viewing under the microscope. Images were projected onto a screen and ID charts were provided to identify these amazing critters!   While enjoying some locally sourced nibbles, the Ambassadors chatted to some of the teachers on board about marine education in schools. Robin and Jennah were pleased to hear that many teachers were fully engaged in pledging to reduce their plastic waste! A plastic trivia game on the way home (with eco-friendly prizes including re-usable straws, cotton and beeswax bags and bamboo toothbrushes on offer) offered some final inspiration for teachers to go over what they had learnt and would take back to teach their students. Robin and Jennah reported back that "the programme proved to be a fantastic and very informative day. The work that the Moreton Bay Environmental Centre is doing is vital to the protection and understanding of our oceans for the future generations. The time to take action on plastic waste is now!" Huge thanks go to the Moreton Bay Environmental Education Centre for letting our Ambassadors come along and for all the great work they do. Check out some more of the day's action below!     

  Have you got on board with Plastic Free July? Are you working to improve your environmental impact by reducing your single use plastic? GO YOU! Reef Check Australia and our wonderful friends at Biome want to make it even easier for you to ditch single use plastic, so we've teamed up for a great giveaway.   To support Plastic Free July and help you keep your plastic free pledge up for the long haul, Biome have donated 3 single use plastic free hampers for Reef Check to offer our awesome supporters. Each pack contains a reusable water bottle, straw, food wraps, coffee cup, shopping bag and produce bags - to make it easier than ever to be single use plastic free! To be in with a chance of winning one of these packs, all you need to do is donate $25 or more to Reef Check Australia by the end of August.Winners will be selected at random from those who have donated. And no, donating more won't increase your chance of winning -  but it will increase our ability to help protect our reefs and oceans!  Although this promotion is open to Queensland residents only, we hope it won't stop any of you non-Queenslanders from supporting our work! And of course you can all download our free Plastics Ocean Action Kit to help you in your environmental pledges. Let's give single use plastic the flick!

       Reef Check Australia has been monitoring inshore fringing reef sites in Moreton Bay / Quandamooka since 2009. We've recently added new monitoring sites for the fringing reefs at Green, St Helena and Mud Island thanks to funding from Port of Brisbane. These sites, so close to the city of Brisbane and the surrounding catchment area, are exposed to water quality issues from sediment and runoff, and high-levels of recreational access. Subtropical marine habitats can also be affected by climate change, with resident species responding to changes in water temperature. Conditions in Moreton Bay can be challenging for diving, but luckily our team had glorious winter weather. The water was beautiful and clear, with barely a puff of wind all weekend. It was an inspiring reminder of the sometimes-forgotten beauty and health of the underwater environment right on Brisbane's doorstep. Seeing notable coral communities just minutes from a bustling metropolitan city is incredibly uplifting and highlights the resilience of these amazing organisms. The range of pressures they face make it all the more important to continue to survey and monitor the health of these sites.  Congratulations to our survey team for collecting the data, and thanks to Port of Brisbane and the Moreton Bay Research Station for making this trip possible. Happy to announce that we'll be conducting bi-annual surveys at these sites again this season, so stay tuned for more updates!      

We have a winner! The surfboard raffle was drawn on 2 July and we're thrilled to say a big congratulations to Chris Doropoulos! Check out the handover video!  Huge thank you to Reef Ambassador Tania Kenyon. Tania coordinated this campaign to raise funds to support our work and give back to future Layne Beachley Foundation Aim for the Stars leadership program scholarship winners. As part of her Layne Beachley Aim for the Stars Foundation leadership scholarship and as one of our power house outreach volunteers, she put a tremendous effort into coordinating a raffle of a completely one-of-a-kind and rather epic Tree to Sea Australia timber surf board signed by surf legend herself, Layne Beachley. It is a time when we truly need more people empowered to look after our reefs and oceans and Tania's awesome fundraising efforts will help inspire more reef champions. Since April, our dedicated volunteers have been promoting the raffle and selling tickets at various events and festivals around Brisbane, raising $4,733 for Reef Check Australia and the Layne Beachley Foundation.  Reef Check Australia will receive 70% of the proceeds, and will put the funds toward citizen science and Reef Ambassador outreach activities. The Layne Beachley Foundation will dedicate the funds to recipients of ‘Aim for the Stars’ scholarships, for women striving towards their dreams in a variety of fields. Tania Kenyon, raffle organizer and Reef Check Australia Ambassador, who has been volunteering for Reef Check Australia since 2015, was extremely happy at the outcome. “I feel so good that I was able to give to a group like Reef Check Australia, that is dear to my heart and who’s work is so in line with my passions and ambitions. And that I could give back to the Layne Beachley Foundation, to support more aspiring young women. I’m also humbled at how much the community and my networks got behind what I was doing and showed so much positivity around the raffle – thank you!” We are very grateful to ‘Tree to Sea Australia’ for donating the beautiful surfboard, and of course to everyone that bought a ticket in the raffle. You are true ocean heroes!

The Great Barrier reef survey teams have been busy this month completing Magnetic Island surveys and adding more sites to the Magnetic Island snorkel trails.   Meanwhile, working together with Reef Ecologic, Reef Checkers celebrated World Ocean Day on Magnetic Island by assisting with a beach clean-up, taking conservation pledges and taking part in island outreach to support the awesome plastic-free initiative The Last Straw on the Great Barrier Reef!  Reef Check Ambassadors are undertaking this work in conjunction with the Last Straw on the GBR to help local cafe's and bars reduce their plastic straw usage in Townsville and on Magnetic Island. We’ll keep you updated on this important project     Reef Checkers were also present at Ecofiesta in Queens Garden, Townsville to help encourage sustainable behaviours and teach people how to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle. Lots of visitors on the day made pledges to reduce their impact, such as reducing single-use plastics. Our volunteers are doing some incredible work in this region and we can’t wait to share more updates with you!

It's been few weeks of events for our Ambassadors, who have been representing Reef Check at the Logan Eco Action Festival (LEAF), the Green Heart Fair, and the Quandamooka Festival.   A team of volunteers ran a stall at LEAF to help raise awareness about local environmental issues, and educate the community on the importance of citizen science. They even got to meet Costa Georgiadis from ABC’s Gardening Australia!  And the Green Heart Fair, Chermside, they ran a community stall helping promote the message of sustainable living, and sharing some tips on how to reduce your plastic use to combat plastic pollution and marine debris.   Meanwhile, some of the team headed over to North Stradbroke Island to help kick off the Quandamooka Festival, sharing information about some of our local survey sites off the island, and promoting local conservation issues.  Reef Check are proud to have been involved in celebrating the people, culture, and beautiful environment of the Quandamooka area.   Two of our lucky Ambassadors were also able to head out on the Moreton Bay Environmental Education Centre's vessel, the MV Inspiration, for a 'beat plastic pollution' session. Robin and Jennah, along with a host of local school teachers, participated in a plankton tow around Moreton Bay, and studied the samples on board for evidence of microplastics. Watch this space for a video about their day of adventures soon! Our Reef Ambassadors program in Brisbane is supported by Queensland Government's Community Sustainability Action Grant Program, Port of Brisbane and Advance Queensland. 

Following some pretty intensive training as part of our first Sunshine Coast based Reef Ambassador course, in May we welcomed 17 new Reef Ambassadors/Ocean Action Agents to our team thanks to a grant from June Canavan Foundation.    It's wonderful to see so many super awesome, inspiring people ready to get active in their community!  We would like to thank each and every one of them for their enthusiasm and ideas and for wanting to help protect our reefs and oceans in any way they can.  We are very excited to see their projects come to fruition!    

Reef Check Australia were excited to introduce 13 new Ocean Youth Action students to the REEFSearch citizen science program in the last month, thanks to SEALIFE Mooloolaba.    Students used their new REEFSearch skills to locate a variety of invertebrates, impacts and substrates found along the Mooloolaba rockpools to test out their new kits in preparation for visiting some local reefs later in the year.      Why not check out the REEFSearch Program and see how YOU can get involved!