A presentation made by the Salesian Secondary School students from Lodz

The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe. It is connected with the North Sea and finally with Atlantic Ocean by Danish straits: Kattegat and Skagerrak. The countries, which are situated around the Sea are: Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, Denmark and Poland. The average salinity is 7‰.

(english version)

El mar Báltico es un mar interior de agua salobre del norte de Europa. El es abierto al mar del Norte y, finalmente, al océano Atlántico a través de los estrechos de Kattegat y Skagerrak. Los paises, que son situado alrededor del mar Báltico son: Suecia, Finlandia, Rusia, Letonia, Lituania, Alemania, Dinamarca y Polonia. La promedia salnidad es 7‰.

(la española versión)

The Baltic sea is about 1600 km long and about 193 km wide. It’s not deep, an average depth is 55 m. The maximum depth is 459 m on the Swedish side of the center. The surface area is about 377,000 km² and the volume is about 20,000 km³. The sea border with land is about 8000 km. Baltic Sea consists with three parts: Bornholm’s (max Depth 105 m), Gotland’s (max depth 459 m) and Bothnia’s (max depth 294 m).

Baltic’s salnity is not as big as ocean’s salnity, because of many reasons. The rainfall is high, so there is a lot of fresh water. Besides, the volume of the basin is about 21,000 km³ and yearly runoff is about 500 km³. The other reason is that many rivers (like Wisla, Oder, Newa, Kemi, Neman, Lule, Gota, Ångerman and Dvina) fall into the sea. The open surface waters have salinity of 6 to 8 ‰.

Freezing begins in the northern coast of Gulf of Bothnia typically in middle of November,

reaching the open waters of Bothnian Bay in early January. The Bothnian Sea, the basin

south of it, freezes on average in late February. The Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Riga freeze

typically in late January.

• Amber is one of the most expensive stones.

• In Poland on the beaches we can find a lot of Amber.

• It is really the most outstanding symbol of the Polish seaside.

• Collected on the beaches of the Baltic Sea was called northern gold in Europe.

• This treasure of Poland has about 40mln years.

The Baltic Sea is one of the most polluted seas in the world. In 1973 the Gdańsk Convention was signed about fishing and about protection of the Baltic Sea. There were also signed another Convention one year later, but it’s still very polluted. The reasons of this problem are: formation of new cities, intensive development and industrialization, sewages and wastes.

Actions to save the Baltic Sea:• construction of a sewage treatment plant• installation of industrial filters to reduce dust and gas emission• construction of landfills and environmental rehabilitation of old ones• a change in industrial technology in a more environmentally-friendly effect of reducing energy and water consumption and the amount of sewage and waste disposals• wider use of renewable energy sources - the construction of hydro and wind plant• reducing the consumption of fertilizers in agriculture• use of waste and recyclables• limiting the use of hard degradable plastics• reducing water consumption in households• conserve energy,• collecting recyclable materials• reducing the use of detergents containing phosphates• taking care of clean beaches and coastal waters• reducing car use and thereby reduce emissions of pollutants into the atmosphere. All this can help to protect our health and the environment. It's not a lot .

In Poland there are two National Parks at the seaside:

•Wolin National Park

•Słowiński National Park

Wolin National Park is situated in the center of island Wolin. The symbol of the Park as you can see is White-tailed Eagle. The biggest landscape attraction are cliffs at the Baltic Sea and Szczecin Lagoon. The most popular plant occuring in the Park is The Sea holly. There are also a lot of kinds of animals, for example: owls, bats, roe deers, foxes, wisents, etc.

Słowiński National Park was created in 1967. It’s situated in the central part of polish coast. Characteristic elements of the Park are: lakes, marshes, meadows, bogs, dunes, coastal forests and woodlands. The symbol of the Park is seagull. The most important animals of the Park are birds, for example swans, seagolls, ducks, terns. You can find there also other kind of animals, for example mooses, butterflies and seals.

The Polish coast of the Baltic Sea is a very popular place to spend your holiday. It’s not very clean or warm, but there are some other advantages. For example, we’ve got beautiful beaches, a lot of interesting places to visit and above all, awesome cities, like Gdańsk, Sopot, Darłowo, Władysławowo, Ustka, Kołobrzeg or Świnoujście.

Gdańsk is the second largest city at the seaside in Poland. It’s one of the oldest polish cities, with over 1000 years history. Matches of Euro 2012 will take place there. In Gdańsk, there are also a lot of monuments, like Neptun’s Fontain, Westerplatte, Town Hall of the Old City.It is also the main part of Trójmiasto, which consists with Gdańsk, Gdynia and Sopot.

Hel is a peninsula and also it’s a city situated in the north of Poland. It’s very interesting and beautiful place. Peninsula is about 34 km long and 150 m – 3 km wide. When you are in the less wide place, you can see sea from both sides. On Hel there is situated President’s Residence. It’s really small city; there live only about 4000 people.

Kołobrzeg is situated in the north-west part of Poland. It was founded in the 7th century. There is a trade, passenger, fishing port. Kołobrzeg is famous for sanatarium and for cultural ivents in summer.

Władysławowo is one of the largest tourist city in Poland. It was founded in 12th century. In Władysławowo there is a seaport. There is also very popular tourist attraction – the Lighthouse Rozewie.

Nekton - large animals, actively swimming in open water. These includes fish and marine mammals.In the Baltic Sea, we can find 26 species of marine fish. In addition, there are 4 species of living marine mammals. They are: gray seal, ringed seal and common seal, and a representative of cetaceans - the porpoise.

Zoobenthos - animals living on the seabed. Among the Baltic mussels dominate crustaceans and snails. We can meet the most diverse in the shallow rocky bottom.

Zooplankton - animal organisms, more or less passively floating in the water column. This group includes single-celled animals and multicellular organisms with a complex structure: rotifers, crustaceans. It grows up to several centimeters in diameter jellyfish. Moreover, in the Baltic Sea there are numerous fish and shellfish larvae.

Phytoplankton - microscopic plant organisms passively floating in the water column. In the Baltic Sea’s phytoplankton we can find over 700 species, which are dominated by diatoms and cyanobacteria. Phytobenthos - plants growing on the seabed. In the Baltic, the composition of setteld vegetation includes green algae, brown algae and flowering plants.

Sea holly. It occurs on the shores of the Baltic Sea. It blooms from June to August, is pollinated by insects. Fruits are spread by animals. This plant in Poland is under protection. It is under danger of afforestation of the dunes, picking and transplanting. It is one of the favorite motives of embroidery school Puck.Located in the town's coat of arms Dziwnów, Żelistrzewo and Ustronie Morskie.Sea plantain. It grows on the Baltic coast. Cooking: young leaves are edible sea plantain, and tend to be eaten cooked or raw in salads.

Grey seal

The Grey Seal (Halichoerus grypus, meaning "hooked-nosed sea pig") is found on both shores of the North Atlantic Ocean. It is a large seal of the family Phocidae or "true seals". It is the only species classified in the genus Halichoerus. Its name is spelled Gray Seal in the US; it is also known as Atlantic Grey Seal and the Horsehead Seal.

The Grey Seal (Halichoerus grypus, meaning "hooked-nosed sea pig") is found on both shores of the North Atlantic Ocean. It is a large seal of the family Phocidae or "true seals". It is the only species classified in the genus Halichoerus. Its name is spelled Gray Seal in the US; it is also known as Atlantic Grey Seal and the Horsehead Seal.

COLDFISH (english) Bacaleo (español) Morina (türk) Dorsz (polski)

HERRING (english) Arenque (español ) Ringa (türk) Śledź (polski)

HAKE (english) Merluza (español) Barlam balığı (türk) Morszczuk (polski)

Adults are usually colored bright, sometimes with a touch of gray and black.Omnivorous, although clearly on animal feed.Very sociable, often nest in large, noisy colonies.

Over our sea, we can meet, inter alia, a seagull Gull. Many tourists feeds the birds, which is not good because then they do not hunt themselves.

They are a great attraction of the beach and decoration of it.

In Poland there are two places for diving. The first one is Hel, and the second is Łeba. In both places people can see wrecks, caves and underwater world.

It is famous for the Battle of Westerplatte, which was the first clash between Polish and German forces during the Invasion of Poland and thus the first battle of the European theater of World War II.

Long, long time ago there lived in the vicinity of Trencher, a man who is famous for having a magic burr mill producing salt. Whenever a man shook the hand, crank grinder salt began to fly. When he wanted to stop the burr mill he had to speak a special spell. Salt in this time was a highly sought product. For this reason this man was very rich. Once, a thief was jealous of his great wealth and planned the robbery. At night he broke into his house and stole the magic grinder. Fleeing to the ship, he tried to hide on the other side of the Baltic Sea. On the second day trip, unable to stop the curiosity, turned the crank. Burr mill began to produce salt, which greatly pleased the thief. At some point he realized that there was too much salt, and he didn’t know what to do with it. Unfortunately, the thief did’t know the spell to stop burr mill. Salt flooded into the entire board, and when there was too many of it, a ship, together with the thief went to the bottom of the sea. Grinder settled at the bottom, and until today is producing salt.