Yesterday the students had a full day of labs and field excursions. While the last group went out on the research boat in the morning the other two groups studied invertebrates in the lab and conducted a short behaviour experiment with the sea stars and urchins. The outcome of their experiments showed that sea stars definitely flip faster than sea urchins. In fact, quite a few of the large urchins didn’t even flip at all. Ahh, the joys of working with live animals!
Highlights from the last boat trip include catching an octopus, tasting scallops and shrimp caught fresh from the ocean, and seeing all of the large lobsters collected in the fish trawl. The little octopus was taken to the aquarium where it was happily eating little crabs and awaiting a tank to calls its home.
After lunch we headed out to see a local sturgeon aquaculture facility, where the fish are being grown for caviar. Unfortunately, there were no tasty samples on this tour but it was neat to see all of the different coloured sturgeon and learn more about these prehistoric fish.
The rest of the afternoon was spent at Caughey-Taylor Nature Preserve, where the students explored Sam Orr’s Pond and hiked the trail out to Berry Point. At the pond the students used dip nets to see what was living in these unique ponds. They collected little green crabs, a small jelly fish, sticklebacks and little shrimp. The bus ride back to the Huntsman was very quiet…I think we tired them out!
To finish the day the teachers set up a campfire for the students, where they got to make ‘octopus’ dogs and roast marshmallows for s’mores. Sounds pretty tasty!
Mud star collected while on the research vessel.
Beautiful drawings during the invertebrate lab.
Upside down sea urchin (note the white teeth in the middle that form a star pattern.)
Exploring the sturgeon aquaculture facility.
Sturgeon!
Hiking at Caughey-Taylor.
Exploring at Sam Orr's Pond.
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