At the 2023 Te Tūkohu Ngāwhā Mātauranga Māori Science and Design Fair, Fish Futures partnered with Lakes380 to host an interactive stand to introduce students to lake food web (who eats who!).
Fish Futures team member, Simon Stewart, showcased Te Arawa lakes food webs and how knowledge of them can be used to inform management of kōaro. Kōara is a native fish; a whitebait species, that live in Te Arawa lakes.
Simon had a tablet loaded with software containing a lake food web model. After an initial brief discussion, students were able to fill out a form where they hypothesised which management actions would lead to the biggest increase in kōaro and why.
The options were:
- remove trout
- reduce nutrients
- increase nutrients
- create wetlands.
The students played with the model and afterwards they reflected on their hypothesis and what was the observed best management options for kōaro. The students then got a chocolate fish!
This exercise gave students an insight into the non-intuitive outcomes that result from food web interactions. In this case the fact that removing trout is bad for kōaro because trout suppress competition between smelt and kōaro.
There was interest from teachers in using the model as a learning module.