High school students crowded to push and smush wet concrete into a quartet of fibreglass-framed reef balls on Wednesday.

Despite wearing heavy duty gloves, Grade 9 students from ClaremontB次元官网网址檚 International Global Studies ended up with concrete on their clothes as they guided the concrete, pouring out of a Butler Bros. concrete mixer, into the one-metre wide frames. Inside each frame is a recognizable orange buoy. The concrete dries into a ball around the buoy, and the buoy is then removed as the balls are placed into the seabed.

B次元官网网址淭oday is the day we add [concrete] but weB次元官网网址檝e been learning about the [reef balls] and where theyB次元官网网址檒l go, what theyB次元官网网址檒l do, for a few days now,B次元官网网址� said student Grace MacMaster.

Once the concrete is dry the reef balls will be dropped into a B次元官网网址渄ead zoneB次元官网网址� on the west side of the Victoria International Marina. ItB次元官网网址檚 an idea from the company behind the design and construction of the marina, said Eric Li, director of lifestyle and technology with VIM.

B次元官网网址淭he goal is to create the reef balls with students as a source of education and to improve the [marine] environment at the marina,B次元官网网址� Li said. B次元官网网址淲e should have already documented how much the sea life has recovered under the marina, itB次元官网网址檚 amazing.B次元官网网址�

As the engineers who helped install giant wind turbines into the ocean floor of the North Sea have learned, the more infrastructure thatB次元官网网址檚 available, the more sea life will attach itself and grow. In the North Sea, mussel populations booming. Here in the Inner Harbour, itB次元官网网址檚 the usual variety of small fish, which are starting to invite predators, Li said.

B次元官网网址淲e have seals coming through and weB次元官网网址檙e hoping to host salmon fry in a net pen, if we can get permission,B次元官网网址� Li said.

Once the reef balls settle Li said theyB次元官网网址檒l consider adding up to 15 to create a reef.

reporter@saanichnews.com