The Irish Wildlife Trust and T-Bay Surf and Wildlife Centre invite you to enter this year's exciting
World Oceans Festival Art competition! It is open to all classes in primary schools. We would like you to make a mobile, using waste materials, which communicates the balance of nature.

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Rules
Original Works will be accepted
All materials being used for 2nd time, or 3rd or 4th etc.!
Max. size: 1m square
Hang mobile using 1.5m string minimum.

Prizes
1st : Class visit to Fota Wildlife Park, Cork
2nd : Surf Lesson for your class, T-Bay Surf and Wildlife Centre
3rd: Class trip to NEEC, Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow
4th : Class ramble to Fenor Bog / Fairymount Farm (to be confirmed)
5th : Nature and Wildlife Pack for your classroom

Nature in Balance
Nature is a very well-balanced system. There is always just enough food, enough water, enough of whatever is needed for the creatures and plants, and never any waste. There are food chains, in which all plants and animals are food for some other animal (predators and prey).
The ocean covers the majority of the earth's surface, and contains a vast range of animal and plant life (bio-diversity), such as whales, seabirds, crabs, seaweed, starfish, limpets and plankton, all of which are well adapted to that environment. Food supply in the ocean is like a pyramid with tiny phytoplankton at the bottom, whales, seabirds and polar bears at the top. Even in little rock pools, seaweed provides food and shelter for small creatures, worms scavenge the sand, starfish and crabs eat smaller fish and periwinkles. Every plant and animal is food for something else, and so a harmony or balance exists between all of nature.

But the balance can be rocked : temperature rises, or the arrival of an alien plant or animal, can have an effect on life in the ocean. Did you know that there were no rabbits in Australia until white people brought them there in 1859, and they have caused havoc - extreme steps have been taken to eradicate them, including infecting them with a horrible disease called myxamatosis. Another example of the disturbance of natural balance is the plant Spartina: it is not native to Ireland (came here by accident in ships ballast), spreads quickly in salt-marshes. Because it did not evolve alongside other species here, nothing eats it and so it grows and grows, taking up all the space of Eelgrass, which is native, and is essential food for many migratory seabirds. The Chinese Mitten Crab (brought to Europe on the bottom of ships) could destroy all our riverbanks, because nothing here likes to eat it, and it can multiply very quickly, and wipe out the food supply for other creatures.
So, nature does a very good job of making sure that things stay in balance, when left to its own devices. The problems caused by human interference are legendary. We could learn a lot from nature about balance and knowing what "enough" means!

We would like you to try to express this wonderful balance in your mobile for World Oceans Festival.

• Bio-diversity: all the living things in an area or eco-system
• Phytoplankton: microscopic (invisible) plant living in the top layers of the ocean, which convert the suns energy into food that is used by fish and other animals.
• Alien: Plant or animal which does not "belong" in a particular habitat or area

Please write your name and class, school, teacher and contact telephone number (weekday and weekend ) clearly, on your work.

Work will be judged by The Den's Don Conroy and prizes awarded at 3 pm on Saturday afternoon at the festival.

We look forward to receiving your art, and seeing you, your family and your friends at the festival.

For more information, contact : Marie Power at 051 386329 or email marpower@eircom.net.
Information about where to send your entries will be posted before end April.