Lisgar Collegiate Institute & Colonel By Secondary School - 2019

This week on campus we hosted students from Lisgar Collegiate Institute and Colonel By Secondary School, both from the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. The students had the opportunity to study a range of marine organisms from tiny plankton to huge baleen whales. They were exposed to different marine habitats and life on Grand Manan Island. Here are a few photos from their adventurous week.

On the first day everyone went on a Huntsman research vessel, the Fundy Spray. Depending on the tide it could be a steep walk!

Collecting marine invertebrates using the benthic or scallop drag.

Sorting through the animals collected from the bottom of the bay.

Blood stars and a common sea star.

Rock crab

Shrimp

Lots of scallops!

Phytoplankton collected using the fine mesh net.

Zooplankton collected using the coarse mesh net.

Viewing the live plankton.

Zooplankton & phytoplankton viewed at 40x magnification. Lots of copepods!

View at 100x magnification.

Visiting Captain Peter to learn about lobster fishing On Grand Manan Island.

Inside the museum at the Grand Manan Whale and Seabird Research Station.

Drawing, describing and identifying marine invertebrates in the classification lab.

The students were encouraged to study the diversity of the available animals. This dish contains a moon snail, purple sunstar and sponge.

brittle star

Did you see the sea cucumber move?!

How many eyes do each of these animals have? Hint, the answer is not zero.

Observations of a rock crab.

Getting a closer look at the external anatomy of a sea urchin.

We challenged students to find and draw the pattern on the urchin.

Exploring the animals that live in the intertidal zone.

 

Sea stars hiding under a rock in the lower intertidal zone. How many do you see?

Behaviour experiments: does size affect the flipping rate of sea stars?

Does temperature affect the flipping rate of urchins?

Does salinity affect the flipping rate of urchins?

Does temperature affect the feeding rate of barnacles?

Testing the strength of echinoderm tube feet.

Testing the reaction of crabs to light.