In Australia, there are commercial fishers who supply wild-caught fish for domestic consumption and export, and recreational fishers who catch fish for personal eating and recreation.

There are also many aquaculture and fish farmers who farm fish for our consumption. These farmers use a range of systems. Different kinds of shellfish and fish are farmed in ponds, pens, tanks, cages, baskets or on racks.

Your challenge is to research what fish farms look like and the technologies they use to raise, feed and grow shellfish or fish like salmon, trout and tuna.

Then design a floating fish farm and make a model with pipe cleaners, plastic mesh, hessian, balloons, polystyrene, weights, bubble wrap, paper straws, sticky tape, textas, glue and thick card.

Decide which criteria will be used in your fish farm. Will your fish farm:

• Make it easy to catch the fish?
• Be seal proof?
• Have plenty of water circulation?
• Prevent fish waste entering the sea? and
• Be able to cope with big waves and storms?

(Copyright: Australian Science Teachers Association 2020, except where indicated otherwise. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.)