Young Explorer Day - Seals

Today the Young Explorers learned about seals during our weekly day program.  Next Wednesday will be about sharks.

Behind the scenes tour of the seal food prep before we watched the seal feeding.

Did you know the seals get a vitamin every day?

Hmmm...what adaptations would we need to live in the ocean like a seal?

Observing Snorkel and Loki out of the water.

Making a craft about seal adaptations.

Enjoying the sun while playing seals and herring.

Conducting an experiment to learn why seals exhale before diving.

Touch tank fun!

Road Scholars

This week we have welcomed a group of Road Scholars to the Huntsman to learn about marine biology in the Bay.  Check out the pictures to see what they have been up to with us.

Boarding our research vessel, the Fundy Spray.

Collecting plankton.

We sampled the sea floor using a scallop drag.

Having a look at what lives on the sea floor: scallops, urchins, crabs, etc.

Using the Secchi disc.

Using the microscopes in the lab to study the plankton.

Touring the Huntsman Fundy Discovery Aquarium.

Snorkel and Loki the harbour seals.

Exploring the intertidal zone at Indian Point.

We found sea stars and dogwinkle eggs under this rock on the beach.

Having a closer look at the invertebrates we collected.

Hmm...which animal do I want to study?

Conducting behaviour experiments with sea stars.

Touring the ARC, the research museum at the Huntsman.

Having a look at the porbeagle shark head.

Hiking at the salt marsh at Pagan Point Nature Reserve.

Looking and listening for some birds along the way.

All Things Marine

This week we have been hosting our field course for teachers - All Things Marine.  Throughout the week the teachers had a packed schedule of exploration in the field and in the lab.  Here are some pictures that tell the story of the week.

Experiencing the maritime fog.

Scallop drag while on the research vessel.

Ready to study our catch in the lab.

Having a closer look at a sand dollar.

Studying the biodiversity of our catch.

Our plankton samples, including a jelly!

Studying the plankton in the aquarium lab.

Exploring the intertidal zone at Indian Point.

Wow, look at all the urchins and sea stars!

Mission complete!  She picked up the crab!

Measuring echinoderms for the right side up experiment.

Which is faster smaller or larger sea stars?

Touring the ARC.

Having a look at deep sea specimens...

...such as, the gulper eel.

An afternoon of art.

On the hunt for the invasive green crab.

Gathering data on the size and gender of the crabs.

Digging for marine worms.

Young Explorer Day - Seabirds

Today our Young Explorers learned about seabirds through games, crafts and hands on time with some of our beautiful seabird specimens.  We also checked out some of the puffin and tern cameras from Machias Seal Island.

Next week the Young Explorers will be learning about seals.

Identifying seabirds such as gannets and guillemots.

We did an experiment to learn how puffins stay warm and then made a puffin puppet.

A 'gathering' of cute puffins!

The seals were checking out our seabird bingo game.

Playing 'Eat Like a Seabird'.

Learning about arctic tern migration while making a model tern.