Day 1 of my trip to Australia- what are seaweed fruits?

Hello fellow earthlings!

This post is a bit different than my regular blog posts because I'll be sharing a bit about my personal life!

My dad is from Australia and his family still lives there, but we in America. As a family, we visit as much as possible. For this winter break, we are visiting my dad's hometown, Adelaide!

the US, where I live is the red area on the left. Australia is on the right. They're pretty much on opposite sides of the world!

I'm going to be posting one blog every day about my experiences in Australia. All of this happened on the 23rd of December but I'm posting it on the 24th because I kinda forgot to click the post button. Hehe!

On the trip, my cousins and I went to the beach. That's when we saw these really weird looking green things on the beach. There were a lot of them right along the water.

My cousin holding some fruits!

They were firm but when you popped them open, there were little seeds inside.

These are actually called seaweed fruits.

SEAWEED FRUITSSS

Seaweed fruits contain seeds for seagrass. Seagrass is important for the ocean ecosystems because it provides an important habitat for fish. Like trees, these underwater plants also store carbon, which helps water quality. In fact, according to ozfish.org, "a hectare of seagrass stores 35 times more carbon than a hectare of rainforest."

ozfish.org also says that the seagrass meadows are in trouble. The fruits float on the water, and they are supposed to be broken open by the wind so the seeds are exposed. Then, the seeds are meant to sink to a shallow part of the ocean, where they will grow roots and eventually turn into seagrass again. But oftentimes, the wind blows them all the way to the sandy shore, where they can't grow. That's why they need our help to get back to the ocean!

The restoration organization, Seeds for Snapper in Adelaide, leaves out big bins where you can drop off seaweed fruits that you find. My cousins and I collected a bunch along the beach and it was super fun! We used this guide to sort through which ones we should dump in the bin.

The guide on which fruits were good

We filled up a small bucket with seawater and sorted through the piles of seagrass bits by the shore. Whenever we found a promising fruit, we'd put it in the bucket! Here's what it looked like to collect them.

It might look like there was a lot of fruit, but a lot of those were just bits and pieces and most of them didn't have the seed inside anymore. We had to refer back to the guide a couple times just to make sure that what we were getting was the right stuff!

I'm very proud to say that we actually ended up collecting quite a few by the end of the day. Here'a a photo of our bucket!

A photo of our bucket full of seaweed fruits!

When we were done collecting, my aunt drove us to the drop-off bin. We thought it would be hard to find, but we found it immediately! We opened it and just like our buckets, it had a bit of ocean water at the bottom so the seeds wouldn't go bad. I was really happy to see that some people had already dropped off fruits! My cousin and I decided to pour the seeds in together and we even got a picture!

This was such a fun activity and I also learned a lot about seaweed fruits in the process. Every two days, the organization empties the bins and disperses the seeds into the ocean where they can grow. They hope to make meadows of seagrass one day so we can have cleaner oceans and the fish can have good places to hide. Visit ozfish.org.au for more information and please collect some seeds if you're ever in Adelaide because it was really fun! HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE I LOVE YOU ALL! And remember, we can make a difference together!

Sources:

ozfish.org.au and interviewing my parents, cousins, and aunts!