Year 9 STEAM Artificial Reef Project - Part 1

Preparing our students for life outside of school is central to our learning philosophy at St Andrews. While studying academic subjects is always going to be an important part of your child’s education, we also value the development of skills that go beyond the classroom. We believe the development of the social and personal skills we all need to thrive in today’s world are just as important as academic skills. Year 9s have been working on a project that goes beyond skill development as it will have a real impact on the world when complete.  

Anyone swimming in the coastal waters around Thailand, or off the beautiful islands in the Gulf of Thailand or the Andaman Sea, hopes to see brightly coloured coral reefs full of amazingly diverse marine life. But over time, Thailand’s coral reefs have begun to deteriorate due to overfishing, damage from coastal development, pollution, and tourism, and due to the fragility of our ecosystem, this can have a devastating effect on the health of the ocean and ocean life. Climate change is also having an impact on the health of coral reefs.

In an ambitious project that is part of their Year 9 curriculum, St Andrews students have been designing artificial coral reef nurseries. These structures will be designed and built by students, so when finished, will be placed in the sea off Rayong. While at first this may seem unusual task for school students to undertake, the programme is an integral part of the STEAM approach to learning which develops skills in science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics. This approach requires knowledge to be used in a practical way, and involves hands-on problem solving that helps each child develop their creativity, resourcefulness, curiosity and confidence – the kind of skills they’ll need for adult life, whether at university or in their career.

Through a process of research, drafting a design, building a prototype, listening to feedback, then refining their design, over eight weeks students will blend skills in science, technology, art, and maths to build an artificial reef to support marine life in Thailand.

Helping them along the way with advice and guidance will be experts from ATMEC (Aow Thai Marine Ecology Center), a marine science focused initiative by Love Wildlife Foundation that educates students about marine biology and ecology education. Over the course of the project, ATMEC will brief the students about Artificial Reef design and the requirements of the project, provide feedback on design ideas and re-designs until they are approved, advise on materials required, and when the artificial reef  structures are complete, they will assist with placing them in the ocean.

This exciting project is in collaboration with ATMEC, Love Wildlife and Thai Ocean Academy that will raise awareness about ocean life and allow students to design and make artificial reefs. After their designs are complete they will be placed on the ocean floor by the school divers. Students will have their own STA plot - their own artificial coral reef, that they can look after and improve on based on data – making it a truly sustainable project. Data will be collected on a regular basis to review the success of each design to ensure this project has a real positive effect on the environment.

Saving the environment is not an easy task, and each group of students will learn how to design a structure using concrete, rebar, and a host of other building materials. And eventually build the structure by themselves. It promises to be an exciting project and we can’t wait to see the results.

*** This is part 1 in a 3-part series that will also be highlighted at our High School STEAM Expo on Friday 2nd December 2022. Part 2, please click here.