NOV20

Classroom lesson · Wildlife · 🇨🇾 Cyprus

Green Turtle

A gentle sea traveller that nests on Cyprus's beaches

A green sea turtle swimming gracefully through clear blue Mediterranean water

Photo · Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

The green turtle is one of the largest sea turtles in the world, and Cyprus is one of its most important nesting places in the whole Mediterranean Sea. Every summer, female green turtles swim ashore at night, dig nests in the sand, and lay dozens of eggs. Weeks later, tiny hatchlings dig their way out and rush to the sea.

Tell me more

Green turtles get their name not from the colour of their shell (which is usually olive-brown) but from the greenish colour of their fat, which comes from eating lots of sea grass. Adults can grow to about a metre long and weigh up to 200 kilograms — heavier than a large motorbike. Despite their size, they are graceful swimmers and can travel thousands of kilometres across open ocean.

Female green turtles return to nest on the very same beach where they were born, even if it means crossing an entire ocean. Scientists think they navigate using the Earth's magnetic field, like a built-in compass. On Cyprus, Lara Bay in the Akamas Peninsula is the most important nesting beach, and it is carefully protected during the nesting season.

Baby green turtles, called hatchlings, are tiny — about the size of your palm. They hatch at night and instinctively crawl towards the sea, guided by the reflected light of the moon and stars on the water. It is a magical moment, and volunteers who guard the nests often get to watch the hatchlings make their first journey.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01How do you think a turtle knows which beach it was born on after years of swimming in the open ocean?
  2. 02Bright lights from towns and hotels can confuse baby turtles. How might people help by changing their habits during nesting season?
  3. 03Green turtles travel thousands of kilometres across the ocean. What might they 'see' along the way?
Try this

Classroom activity

Draw the life cycle of a green turtle as a circle diagram. Start with the egg in the sand and show: hatching, reaching the sea, growing up in the ocean, travelling as an adult, returning to the birth beach to lay eggs. Write one sentence at each stage.

More about Cyprus

Other things that make Cyprus special

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