Yesterday the students concluded their afternoon testing the strength of sea star and urchin tube feet. The winning species was the urchin! The students were amazed by how much weight both animals could resist. One of the urchins resisted almost 47 times its own weight!
This morning the students are working on their formal invertebrate behaviour experiments. These experiments look at how environmental factors such as temperature, salinity, light and wave action can affect the behaviour of specific invertebrates. For most of the students this is the first time they have experimented with live animals. They are learning how interesting and frustrating this can be but also how to treat the animals ethically. All their animals will be alive at the end of the experiments.
This afternoon the students will venture into St. Andrews for some down time before presenting their zonation and behaviour experiments this evening. Then they will pack up and head back to Quebec with sea stars and crabs filling their dreams on the bus.
Thank you for the teachers and students of Royal West Academy! Come back and visit us again!
Osmoregulation experiment in progress.
Hermit crabs and light.
Flipping sea stars.
Barnacles feeding.
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