What a great morning the Crestwood students had today. In the beautiful sunshine they visited two different beaches to explore and collect specimens for their labs. First they headed out with buckets and shovels to a muddy beach in search of marine worms. Were they ever lucky! As they neared the water they noticed lots of clam worms swimming in the water. On closer inspection they realized it was the male worms releasing their gametes into the water. This is something quite special to see as it only happens in the early spring. After being amazed by the diversity of the worms the students boarded the bus and went to the other end of town to see what lives at Indian Point, a rocky beach. They had a great time searching under the rocks and seaweed for crabs, urchins, and sea stars.
This afternoon the students put all of the animals and knowledge they collected over the past two days to use conducting behaviour experiments. They are divided into groups with each doing one experiment they will then present to everyone on Saturday. All of the experiments are testing how changes in one environmental factor such as temperature, salinity, light or wave action affects a certain group of invertebrates.
This evening the students will have a short lab identifying some of the seaweeds they collected this morning at Indian Point. This is all in preparation for their zonation field study tomorrow morning. They will also show how art and biology are connected while working on posters for their presentations on Saturday.
Below are some pictures from today.
Happily digging in the mud for worms (be careful, some bite!)
Clam worms (one is spawning).
Dogwinkles and their eggs.
Exploring a tide pool at Indian Point...great morning!
Timing a seastar flipping.
Watching barnacles feed.
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