The Great Barrier Reef

Imagine you are floating in warm, sparkly blue water. The sunshine tickles your back from high above the waves, and a little fish with bright orange stripes just zipped past your toes. All around you are castles and gardens made of every color in the rainbow. It feels like a magical kingdom, and it is. I am a giant city, bigger than any city on land. I am so big that astronauts can look down from their spaceships in outer space and see me shining in the ocean. I am not made of bricks or stone, but of something alive. I am a home for millions of sea creatures. My name is the Great Barrier Reef, and I live in the ocean near a country called Australia.

I wasn't built by people with big yellow cranes or noisy machines. My builders were very, very small. In fact, they were billions of tiny, squishy animals called coral polyps. They look like little flowers living in a hard cup. For thousands and thousands of years, these tiny builders worked together. When one little polyp was done building its home, another would build right on top of it. I started growing into the big city I am today a very long time ago, after the cold Ice Age ended about 20,000 years ago. My first human friends were the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. They have lived beside my shores for a very, very long time, and they know all my secrets. They know where the gentle dugongs eat their seagrass lunch and which songs the whales sing. They are my guardians. Much later, in the year 1770, a man named Captain James Cook sailed his big wooden ship, the Endeavour, near me. His eyes opened wide. He said, “Wow. I have never seen anything so big and beautiful.” He was amazed by my size and had to be very careful not to bump his ship into my coral walls.

Today, my coral streets are a busy neighborhood filled with my wonderful family. Funny clownfish peek out from their sea anemone homes, just like in the movies. Wise old sea turtles glide through my waters, looking for a tasty jellyfish snack. Huge, gentle whales swim by to teach their babies how to sing. I am a safe home for so many animals, and I am a special treasure for the entire world. People come from all over to visit me, to swim in my warm waters and say hello to all my colorful residents. I love having visitors, but I need some help. My coral builders need clean water to stay healthy and strong, and the water needs to be just the right temperature, not too hot. You can help me by learning about the ocean and always being kind to our planet. If we all work together, I can stay a bright, rainbow city for all my animal friends and for children like you to enjoy for many years to come.