The Explorers Teacher's Planning Guide provides comprehensive lessons and STEAM activities that can be completed as class projects. The resource provides links to PowerPoint presentations, project plans, lesson plans, and a class quiz.

This review presents updated information on the status of selected shellfish stocks in Ireland for 2024. In addition, data on the fleet and landings of shellfish species (excluding Nephrops) are presented. The intention of this annual review is to present stock assessment and management advice for shellfisheries that may be subject to new management proposals or where scientific advice is required in relation to assessing the environmental impact of shellfish fisheries especially in areas designated under European Directives. The review reflects the recent work of the Marine Institute (MI) in the biological assessment of shellfish fisheries and their interaction with the environment.

The lesson includes two sessions/lesson activities: • EXPLORING ENERGY SOURCES AND THEIR ORIGINS • CLASS DISCUSSION, CREATION, AND COMMUNICATION (Creating Games).

The project plan includes four sessions / lesson activities, including: • MAPPING OCEAN ENERGY POTENTIAL • TIDAL ENERGY - FROM ANCIENT MILLS TO MODERN TURBINES • OFFSHORE WIND ENERGY - DESIGN AND ENGINEERING • WAVE POWER - HARNESSING THE OCEAN'S MOTION.

This presentation encourages children to work together in teams to explore ideas about energy, how it reaches our homes, and how much electricity is consumed in Ireland and worldwide. The students will design pylons and build an innovative smart city that showcases the benefits of using ‘Renewable Ocean Energy—The Power of the Future’.

This presentation aims to explore, develop, and apply scientific ideas and concepts through communication, language, math, design, and creativity. The students will learn about and understand energy sources that generate power through discussion and interactive activities.

This document addresses the growing concern over the impact of underwater noise on marine ecosystems, particularly in the context of offshore renewable energy developments. As offshore wind and other forms of renewable energy continue to expand, understanding and mitigating the effects of underwater noise on marine life is paramount. For this purpose, a study will be undertaken to develop two sets of guidance for monitoring and minimising possible impacts of ORE developments on the environment concerning underwater acoustic noise: ▪ Procedures and technical specifications for compliant underwater acoustic noise monitoring and reporting by Irish ORE developments, and ▪ Criteria, thresholds, and mitigation measures of underwater acoustic noise generated by ORE developments. The stakeholders involved in offshore renewable energy include government agencies, industry players, environmental organizations, research performing groups and local communities. A preliminary survey of relevant stakeholders in Ireland and abroad has been performed.

This document is the third and final deliverable of the study carried out to address the topic “Underwater Noise guidance for Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) developers”, under the Marine Institute’s Research for Policy Awards 2023. A first deliverable (document BD01923001- 01 Scope and Problem Description) defined the scope of the research. Once the problem was described, the study was split into two sections, both approached under the ORE perspective. The first addresses the monitoring and reporting of underwater acoustic noise, covered in the second deliverable, document BD01923002-01 – UN Monitoring and Reporting Guidance for ORE. The second section, which is the subject of this document, covers mitigation measures and thresholds for underwater noise.

Adult returns to many Atlantic salmon wild and hatchery stocks of the North Atlantic have declined or collapsed since 1985. Enhancement, commercial fishery closures, and angling restrictions have failed to halt the decline. Human impacts such as dams, pollution or marine overexploitation were responsible for some stock declines in the past, but adult returns to river and hatchery stocks with no obvious local impacts have also declined or collapsed since 1985. Multiple studies have postulated that the recent widespread occurrence of low adult returns may be caused by climate change, salmon farming, food availability at sea, or marine predators but these possibilities are unsupported by stocks that persist near historic levels, loss of stocks remote from farm sites, a diverse marine prey field, and scarcity of large offshore predators. The decline and collapse of stocks has common characteristics: 1) cyclic annual adult returns cease, 2) annual adult returns flatline, 3) adult mean size declines, and 4) stock collapses occurred earliest among watersheds distant from the North Atlantic Sub-polar Gyre (NASpG). Cyclic annual adult returns were common to all stocks in the past that were not impacted by anthropogenic changes to their natal streams. A flatline of adult abundance and reduction in adult mean size are common characteristics of many overexploited fish stocks and suggest illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fisheries exploitation at sea. Distance from the NASpG causing higher mortality of migrating post-smolts would increase the potential for collapse of these stocks from IUU exploitation. By-catch of post-smolts and adults in paired-trawl fisheries off Europe and intercept adult fisheries off Greenland, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and off Europe have been sources of marine mortality but seem unlikely to be the primary cause of the decline. Distribution in time and space of former, legal high-sea fisheries indicated fishers were well acquainted with the ocean migratory pattern of salmon and combined with lack of surveillance since 1985 outside Exclusive Economic Zones or in remote northern regions may mean high at-sea mortality occurs because of IUU fisheries. The problem of IUU ocean fisheries is acute, has collapsed numerous stocks of desired species worldwide, and is probably linked to the decline and impending collapse of the North Atlantic salmon population.

Ireland’s Ocean Economy Report, 2024, provides an update on Ireland’s ocean economy across three main economic indicators: turnover, gross value added (GVA) and employment. It provides an analysis of trends over a five-year period (2019-2023) and a commentary on rates of change over a ten-year timeframe (2013 to 2023). The report is accompanied by an online dashboard, where data trends can be accessed. The 2024 Ocean Economy Report is the eight in the ocean economy series. Ireland’s ocean economy statistics are based on nominal values.