OCEAN GARDEN WORD PICTURE

Imagine an underwater world of jellyfish, swaying plants, eels, crabs and starfish. This is the Ocean Garden. Our picture shows shoals of brightly coloured fish swimming by and waves swishing across the water’s surface.

We live on a very wet planet. Almost three-quarters of the Earth’s surface is covered by water. The world’s oceans are so huge and so deep that humans have only explored tiny parts of them.

We do know that the salty water of the oceans is full of amazing living things that we have to look after.

In our Ocean Garden an electric eel rests close to the sea bed. Electric eels are really a type of fish. They use electric shocks to kill or stun other fish for food.

A starfish floats lazily past the eel. These are some of the most beautiful fish in the ocean. Starfish come in many different colours, shapes and sizes. They have hundreds of tiny feet on the bottom of each arm. If one of their arms gets hurt, some starfish can grow a brand new arm in its place.

A jellyfish seems to change colour as it floats in the Ocean Garden. Jellyfish have lived on the earth for about 650 million years. They were here before dinosaurs.

The crab in our Ocean Garden has great big claws that look pretty powerful. There are many different species of crab, found all over the world. Unluckily for crabs their meat is a delicacy in some countries, lots of people think it’s very tasty to eat!

As crabs get larger they grow out of their shells. The shell falls off and they grow a new, bigger one.

The water on our planet always moves. Sunshine turns water from oceans, lakes and seas into water vapour. The vapour rises and condenses into clouds, then falls back down to earth as rain.

It takes all sorts of gardens to make a world and they all need looking after.