Crestwood Prep - Day 3

This morning the students spent the morning in the lab conducting behaviour experiments on some of the marine invertebrates they had collected while on the boat earlier in the week.  The experiments were testing the effect of temperature change on the feeding rate of barnacles and determining if size effects the flipping rate of sea stars and urchins.  I look forward to tomorrow when the students will be presenting the results of their experiments!

For the afternoon the students headed to two different intertidal zones to explore.  At the first location there was lots of rocks and seaweed and the students found lots of interesting animals hiding under the rocks including green crabs, sea stars, urchins, rock gunnel fish, and sponge. One of the really cool finds was all the sea slugs and their white egg masses!

The second location was a muddy beach so shovels were necessary to find the animals that were hiding in the sediment.  The students found blood worms and clam worms and were amazed to learn that they have teeth and can bite!  Yes, biting worms!

Counting the number of times the barnacle's 

cirri come out in 20 second increments.

The barnacles on the back of the rock are feeding.

  

Waiting for the sea star to flip right side up.

This urchin is almost finished flipping.

Exploring the intertidal zone.

Little fish called rock gunnels were found under the rocks.

Under this rock there were urchins and 

lots of sea slugs and their egg masses.

A female with eggs.

Digging into the sediment at Pottery Creek.

A blood worm showing its proboscis.

A beautiful clam worm.