Overview: Marine Protected Areas

Throughout this unit, students progressively become acquainted with marine habitats and fragile ecosystems and what they need to survive. They also learn about natural events such as wind, waves, storms, and tsunamis, which can severely impact marine habitats and disturb, and even destroy habitats and ecosystems. Although these effects can be devastating, they are not very frequent. Students also learn that human activities impact marine habitats and ecosystems because of over-fishing, water pollution, use of trawling fishing techniques, and many others. They also find that, although natural events cannot be prevented, impacts caused by humans can be somewhat curbed through the creation of marine protected areas.