NSW Department of Primary Industries, The Lord Howe Island Signal

United Nations World Oceans Day is celebrated globally on 8 June each year to honour the ocean and how it supports us.

The Lord Howe Island Marine Park (LHIMP) is a particularly significant place to mark the occasion. It’s one of only 50 UNESCO Marine World Heritage sites worldwide and the only marine park in NSW with World Heritage status. The marine park is globally distinct not only for its incredible natural values, including the world’s most southern coral reef and a diverse suite of endemic species, but also for the social and economic values entrenched in the small community that live on the shores of the park.

This year the theme for World Oceans Day was ‘Wonder: sustaining what sustains us’, inviting us to reflect on how the ocean inspires us with wonder and awe, and how those feelings can motivate us to protect it.

To celebrate, students from Lord Howe Island Central School (LHICS) took part in hands-on activities that encouraged them to get curious about the wonders of the LHIMP. After a welcome presentation by marine park staff, students learned how to look for clues about the ocean by studying unusual items that wash up on the beach.

With some beach safety tips, the students headed to the lagoon to investigate a few mysterious objects. They took field notes and used critical thinking to imagine what kind of sea creatures might have made them and why. They observed the object’s shape, weight, texture and whether it floated or sank, noting any unusual features like holes or teeth. Using these clues, they came up with hypothesis about how a sea creature might have used the object, which part of the ocean the creature lived in, and how it moved.

The students did an incredible job as budding marine biologists, sharing their ideas before learning more from marine park staff. To wrap up, students tested their new knowledge with a true-or-false marine creature fact game and, unsurprisingly, scored almost perfectly.

Back in the classroom, students put their scientific skills into action by writing reports about their findings. Some highlights from their reports about tube snails included:

• “Appearance: Tube Snails are mysterious creatures that look really weird. They have a weird mouth and they actually live inside their shell called a cuttie. They are really slimy on the inside and wonky on the outside.”
• “Diet: Tube snails eat particles, but they never come out of their shell because they can’t get out of their shell. They shoot out snot to catch their prey.”
• “Behaviour: Tube snails hate low tide. They slowly ooze out hard smooth shell. Their shell keeps getting bigger and grows with them.”
• “Habitat: They live in the rock pools around the island.”
• “Conclusion: We should stop stepping on them to protect them.”

A big thank you to the LHICS teachers for helping make another World Oceans Day a success and to the students for dressing up as such a diverse and interesting array of sea creatures for the day.

For more information about World Oceans Day, and to watch the virtual UN program, visit: UN World Oceans Day 2025 – United Nations World Oceans Day

This article appeared in The Lord Howe Island Signal, 31 July 2025.