I was in the middle of writing my fantastic story when my literacy teacher reminded us that we had a trip into the world of VR. Not just any VR, no, into the ocean VR. The teacher told us it was only because we did some research on Sir Peter Blake in term 1 and so we could learn about the problems in the ocean and how we could solve them. Some of the problems were overfishing and pollution. We would learn more about that later.

When my literacy group went down to the hall we saw all these VR headsets and a TV. There was one lady there setting up the TV. ‘This thing was just working a minute ago’ she said. She turned around and noticed us. She told us to sit down and she would introduce herself. ‘Hello everyone! My name is Grace’. She told us that she worked for the Blake foundation. Basically the Blake foundation keeps the Sir Peter Blake legacy alive. Anyways, Grace told us the rules and how to power on the VR headsets. After that we were good and gold. (That’s something my nana says)

Grace told us that she was going to play a series of videos and we could see them in our VR goggles. She also said we had a 360 viewing of everything. That means we can spin in every direction so we can see everything. ‘When you put on the goggles you will see a background with blue moamoa on it’. She said, (I’m pretty sure it was blue maomao) I mean she wasn’t lying, as soon as I put it on I saw a HUGE school of them. Grace said if you couldn’t see anything then to tell her and she would come sort it out. Thank goodness I didn’t have a Problem.

(I can’t exactly remember the order of the videos so I’m just going to tell you about the ones that I remember) After a few moments she played the first video. It was a beautiful, amazing, underwater cave. There were stingrays, snappers and some sort of yellow material on the rocks that we soon learned was Sponge Bob. The next video was us right in the middle of a school of Blue maomao. Grace asked if you could count all the fish, I didn’t even try. I say there were about 1,000,000 fish but we will never know.

After that Grace told us to take our headsets off for a minute. She was going to show us over, White Island and then show us a marine prosurved era. A marine prosurved era is basically where you can’t go fishing, can’t feed the fish, ect. The marine prosurved era that she showed us was near a university or college where marine biologists go to learn about different fish and all that. Grace told us to put our headsets back on so she could show us. The fly over mountain thing was pretty burning but going underwater in a marine prosurved era was AMAZING!!! The water was so clear and beautiful. There were plenty of fish that were Snapper and lots of seaweed. (If you’re wondering why there’s lots of seaweed near the Snapper, it’s because they eat it).

 Then Grace announced that she was going to show us another piece of the ocean. This other piece of ocean was breathtaking. Kind of like the marine prosurved place. Lots of fish and seaweed. Then Grace showed us a not so breathtaking place and revealed that it was the same place as the other one but just five years later. We were shocked. There were heaps of Kina on the ground and barely any seaweed. We asked about it and Grace told us that it was all part of the food chain. Basically the Kina eats the seaweed so then the Snapper eats the Kina and apparently, lobsters also like Kina. 

 You’re also probably wondering, ‘how can Snapper and Lobster eat Kina with their sharp shell?’ Well Snapper and Lobster actually eat the shells with their extremely sharp and strong teeth. Snappers have strong teeth so that’s probably why they’re called Snappers and Lobsters actually have teeth in their stomachs that are pretty sharp. My only question is, how do they get the Kina all the way down to their stomach?

Grace again told us to put our headsets back on again and showed us the underbelly of a walff. You know the things you jump off at some beaches. Anyways when we saw it, it looked DISGUSTING!!! Mould, tiers, algae and more. It was very gross. Grace told us to take our headsets off for the last time and asked us how we could stop making our oceans look like poop and start making them look like actually WATER

I suggested our families start taking more walks on the beach and picking up rubbish or maybe just go to an ACTUAL BIN!!! Anyways that was the end of the lesson so we said our goodbye and went back upstairs to grab our hat. That was the end of that.