SAVING SHARK BAY SAVING SHARK BAY FACT!

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1 Shark Bay in Western Australia is a World Heritage site by Sally Newman, 3F Last September holidays, I visited Shark Bay with my family. I believe it is one of many special areas in Australia that we need to protect. If we don t protect Shark Bay today, people in the future won t be able to visit it and enjoy like I did. SA M O P N LE LY G PLACES ARE BOTH SIMILAR AND DIFFERENT 1.3 SAVING SHARK BAY 3 SAVING SHARK BAY FAC_ACR3_02665_Geography_ALL_2pp.indd 5 What is it? Shark Bay is a bay off the coast of Western Australia. The whole area measures hectares and the water is up to 9 metres deep in some areas. There are islands in the bay and towns such as Denham where you can stay. The whole area was inscribed on the World Heritage List in It is one of Australia s 19 World Heritage sites. Where is it? Shark Bay is located in the Australian state of Western Australia. It is about 800 kilometres from Perth, which is the capital city of Western Australia. Scan the code to link to a video about Shark Bay in Western Australia. not final The Shark Bay area FACT! The World Heritage List identifies places around the world that are considered part of the world s heritage. 22/09/15 3:39 PM

2 Why we need to protect Shark Bay We need to protect Shark Bay because it has lots of special places that I want my children and grandchildren to visit. Here is a list of several of the special places. Dirk Hartog Island is where the Dutch explorer Dirk Hartog landed in He left behind a plate commemorating his visit. There is a place called Monkey Mia where you can see dolphins. Shark Bay is also home to the world s largest seagrass meadows, where more than dugongs come to feed. Finally, in the southern part of the bay is a special pool called Hamelin Pool. Here grow special limestone columns called stromatolites, which are modern living equivalents of the earliest signs of life on Earth. Please help me spread the word about how important Shark Bay is to the world. QUESTIONS 1. Question text question text. A dugong feeding on seagrass Stromatolites in Hamelin Pool, Shark Bay OZBOX Year 3 Oxford University Press 2016

3 3 OUR EXPLOSIVE NEIGHBOUR 3.1 PLACES ARE BOTH SIMILAR GAND DIFFERENT OUR EXPLOSIVE NEIGHBOUR Papua New Guinea is Australia s closest neighbour. It is made up of about half of the island of New Guinea, and many other islands nearby. Papua New Guinea has many volcanoes. Some of them are on New Guinea. Many are on the islands to the east of New Guinea. The island with the most volcanoes is New Britain, Papua New Guinea s biggest island. There are more than 20 volcanoes in New Britain. One of Papua New Guinea s volcanoes Why so many volcanoes? Papua New Guinea has many volcanoes because its islands are on or near the edge of the Pacific Plate. This is a large piece of the Earth s crust that sometimes moves. Earthquakes and volcanoes are common along its edges. FACT! Australia has only two volcanoes. They are both on islands far from the mainland. Caption caption caption Scan the code to link to a video showing an eruption at Mount Tavurvur in Papua New Guinea. not final

4 Deadly eruptions The most recent eruptions in Papua New Guinea took place in September 2014, when Mount Tavurvur, in New Britain, erupted. It sent up clouds of ash to a height of 18 kilometres. People had to evacuate the area, and aeroplanes had to stay away, due to ash in the sky. An eruption at Mount Tavurvur sends clouds of ash thousands of metres into the sky A very severe eruption happened in the same area in This eruption destroyed most of the town of Rabaul, and killed five people. The most recent eruption on mainland New Guinea took place in 1951 at Mount Lamington. The eruption caused widespread damage and the deaths of about 3000 people. QUESTIONS 1. Question text question text. OZBOX Year 3 Oxford University Press 2016

5 3 4.3 ANTARCTIC WEATHER: THE COLD FACTS PLACES ARE BOTH SIMILAR GAND DIFFERENT ANTARCTIC WEATHER: THE COLD FACTS Antarctica is a continent of extremes. Most people would know that it is the coldest continent on Earth. Not many people would know that it is also Earth s driest and windiest continent. The coldest continent Deep inland in Antarctica, it can be as cold as 80 C. The coldest temperature ever recorded in Antarctica was 89.2 C, in Antarctica s warmest weather happens in summer, in its coastal areas. There, it can reach temperatures of 10 C. That might sound chilly to Australians, but it s very warm for Antarctica! Even in these warmer coastal areas, it can still be as cold as 40 C in winter. Scan the code to link to a range of live webcams throughout Antarctica. not final

6 Windy Antarctica Antarctica s winds can be very strong. They start in its interior, near the South Pole, and blow out towards the coast. Compared to every other continent, Antarctica is the windiest throughout the year. Blizzards are common in Antarctica. A blizzard is a strong wind that blows at a temperature of less than 0 C. It can be very difficult to see during a blizzard. Caption caption caption Snowy but dry Even though it contains more than half of the world s fresh water, Antarctica is the driest continent on Earth. This is because most of this water is solid, in the form of ice. The main reason Antarctica is the world s driest continent is that it very rarely rains there. It receives about as much precipitation each year as the Sahara Desert, in Africa, which is less than 2.5 centimetres! FACT! The ice sheets on Antarctica contain a huge amount of water. If they all melted, the world s seas would rise by about 70 metres. QUESTIONS 1. Question text question text. OZBOX Year 3 Oxford University Press 2016