Young Explorers - Seal Day

We had a lot of fun yesterday with the students attending the Seal Young Explorer Program at the aquarium.  We observed the seals, played the seal and herring game, watched Snorkel and Loki eat their breakfast, made seal and fish puppets, dressed up a human with all the items they would need to live in the water like a seal, did a seal and sea lion relay race, and made seal whiskers.

We have more fun and learning planned for next week's Shark program.  Click here for more information.

Observing the harbour seals: Do they have a bellybutton?

Can the seal catch all the herring?

Watching the seal feeding.

Making seal feeding puppets.

A full lab!

Cute seal puppet.

What adaptations would humans need to live in 

the ocean like a seal?  Apparently alot!

Making seal whiskers...

...the finished product!

Young Explorers - Seabird Day

This morning a flock of children arrived at the aquarium to take part in the Seabird Young Explorer program.  We had lots of fun learning about different kinds of seabirds including cormorants, puffins, terns, gannets, and Wilson's storm petrels.  Throughout the day we played seabird bingo, spent some time with our seabird specimens, played a cormorant and eagle nesting game, plunged our hands into cold water to learn about puffin insulation, watched seabird cams while eating our lunch, played gannet and herring outside, made arctic terns, and played the Seabird Survival card game.

Next week's WednesDay program is all about seals.

Seabird bingo.

We spent some time touching the seabirds and 

looking at their eyes, feet and feathers.

This 'cormorant' is doing a good job guarding his egg from the eagles!

Notice the cool colouration of the gull egg.

Making an artic tern...

to learn about their amazing migration.

An intense game of Seabird Survival!

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Young Explorers - Invertebrate Day

Yesterday we had 19 children take part in our Invertebrate Young Explorer Day program at the aquarium.  Below are some pictures from our fun day.

We found lots of green crabs on the beach.

Exploring the beach in the rain.

Making a field guide of intertidal invertebrates.

Everyone hard at work on their field guides in the lab.

We had some great drawings of the green crabs that we collected from the beach.

Playing a crab survival game.

Making snail slime!

Feeding the animals in the touch pool.

Invertebrate puppets.

Check out our website for more information and a registration form for the remaining Young Explorer Day programs this summer.

July Video of the Month - Barnacles

This month's video features Northern Rock Barnacles (Balanus balanoides) feeding. So cool!

Barnacles can be found on the rocky shores of the Bay of Fundy. Beachcombers may pass them by because they appear as part of the rock they are attached to but when the tide comes in they spring into action. When covered by seawater barnacles extend their feet, called cirri, and create currents which draw in microscopic food such as plankton and detritus from the water. They are a fascinating animal and most of what we know about them is the result of research done by Charles Darwin in the mid 1800s.

Intro to Marine Bio - Day 5

This morning we started the day in the lab testing the effect of temperature on the feeding rate of barnacles.  Then we took all the animals that we had collected throughout the week down to the wharf to release back into the ocean.

After a yummy lunch the students all said their goodbyes and were off.  We wish them all well and hope to see them again in the future.

Counting the number of times the cirri extend from the barnacle.

Making sure the temperature is correct.

Heading to the wharf to release all the specimens.

 

Placing all the animals back into the water.

Kissing his favourite goodbye!

Intro to Marine Bio - Day 4

Barb met with the students again this morning to make art and biology connections.  The students worked making paint and wax prints of their favourite marine animals.  Many of us enjoyed the wax print technique so much that we plan to try it at home.  Thanks Barb!

While our art work was drying we conducted an experiment to test if size affects the flipping rate of sea stars and sea urchins.  The students learned the joys and frustrations of working with live animals!

For the afternoon we focused on invasive species.  First with a brief presentation and then marking and gathering data on the invasive green crabs on a local beach.  In about an hour and a half we found and marked 159 crabs.

This evening the students are screen printing t-shirts to keep as a souvenir of their time spent learning about marine biology at the Huntsman and all the great friendships they have made this week.

Having fun making prints.

Sea stars were a popular choice for the wax prints.

Using the iron to transfer the wax to the paper.

The end results were pretty cool.

Gathering sea stars of different sizes to conduct the experiment.

Sea star acrobatics.

This urchin is almost finished flipping.

Plotting the results on the board.

On the hunt for invasive green crabs.

We found a number of female crabs with eggs.

Marking the crabs with nail polish.

That's an interesting way to carry a crab.

A couple of marked crabs.

The biggest crab of the day, which was 8 cm diameter.

Intro to Marine Bio - Day 3

This morning the students started the day with Barb exploring the link between art and biology.  She walked them through some exercises that lead up to doing a contour drawing of a fish.  Then the students did some drawings of the external anatomy of their fish all the while making observations about the adaptations of the fish.  Using the external anatomy the students were able to determine where their species lived in the water column, what it ate, and if it was a fast predator or a sit and wait predator.  The students then opened up the fish to look at the internal anatomy, such as the gas bladder, heart, and liver.  They extracted the gills and otoliths to view with the microscopes.  The really stinky part of the lab came when the stomachs were opened to see if there was still lunch inside.

Armed with buckets and shovels we walked across the peninsula to the Bar Road for the afternoon in search of what lives in the soft sediments at the beach.  We found lots of interesting specimens including blood worms, clam worms, acorn worms, sand dollars, moon snail egg collars, and even squid eggs.  It was a great day exploring the intertidal zone ending with a dip in the ocean to cool off for some of the students.  They were amazed at how 'salty' the water was!

After supper this evening the group was headed into St. Andrews to play at the really cool community playground.  And then maybe a stop at the ice cream shop.

Contour drawing of a hake.

The crabs were happy to munch on some of the dissected fish.

Drawing and labelling the external anatomy, including all the fins.

Gill removal.

Viewing alewife gills using the microscope.

The gut contents of one of the hake.

This alewife was a female as you can tell from the orange eggs.

Looking at the internal anatomy.

Otoliths (ear bones) can be used to determine the age of the fish.

A lovely spot for lunch!

The worm hunt is on!

Squid eggs on the beach.

The boys found some great worms...

...including this blood worm (notice the extended proboscis that is very red).

At one spot on the beach we had to be careful not to step on all the sand dollars.

The longest worm of the day.

Quick dip to cool off.