Young Explorer Sea Star Day - 2019

Today the Young Explorers at the aquarium learned about sea stars and other echinoderms (animals with spiny skin and 5-sided symmetry), such as sea urchins, brittle stars, sand dollars and sea cucumbers. We also had a chance to visit the touch tank, have a look at the other animals in the aquarium, including the seahorses, salmon, jellies, seals and lobsters, and explore the beach. Below are a few photos from the day.

Exploring the intertidal zone. 

Serious crab hunters!

Just a few of the green crabs that were found.

Making a field guide of the animals that we collected on the beach.

Mini-touch tank of echinoderms in the lab.

 

A variety of echinoderms: sea urchin, sand dollar, blood star, purple sunstar, brittle star, sea cucumber and common sea star.

Craft time!

Observing a live sea urchin. How to they move? How many teeth do they have?

Learning how to handle the animals safely.

Getting a closer look at a sea star using the microscope.

Intro to Marine Mammals & Seabirds 2019

This week on campus we had the Introduction to Marine Mammals & Seabirds field course, with teen participants from Canada and the US. Below are a few photos to give you a glimpse of what kept us busy all week.

Identifying plankton.

A copepod (zooplankton) at 40x magnification.

Touring the Huntsman Fundy Discovery Aquarium.

Exploring the touch tank.

Scallop

Female rock crab

Participants created posters to teach their peers about the common marine mammals and gulls in the Bay of Fundy, such as the harbour porpoise...

and the minke whale.

Identifying right whales based on their callosity pattern.

Learning to use the humpback catalogue to identify individual whales based on their fluke pattern.

Heading out with Quoddy Link Marine to look for marine mammals & seabirds in the Bay of Fundy.

Seals hauled out at Black Ledge.

Harbour porpoises feeding.

Shearwaters taking flight.

Minke whale blowholes.

Minke whale dorsal.

Shearwater

Fin whale blow

Minke whale

Harbour porpoise underwater. They are so fast!

The Captain turned off the boat and we could hear the minkes, fin and porpoises exhaling! The Bay was so calm!

Watching and listening to whales.

Looking at the diversity of seabirds and their adaptations to the marine environment.

Eating like a seabird.

Dissecting albatross boluses from Hawaii (Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge).

A bolus is like an owl pellet. It is the indigestible material that is thrown up by the juvenile albatross chick at about five months, just before it leaves the nest.

Natural materials contained in the bolus would be squid beaks, fish bones & eye lenses, pumice stones and wood pieces. The boluses the participants dissected also contained plastic of many shapes, sizes and colours.

Aging porpoise using their teeth.

View through the microscope at a stained section of a porpoise tooth.

Investigating the life history of Right Whale 2029, Viola.

Using student whale sightings to create a whale/wildlife sanctuary.

Young Explorer Week - July 15-19, 2019

Its been a busy week of hands-on learning at the aquarium with our Young Explorers.

Each day had a new theme that we would explore. Below are some pictures from each day.

Monday - Whales

How heavy is a whale rib?

Did you know that whales are mammals and ribs protect their lungs? 

How big are whales?

How many students long is a right whale? ~12 

Different whale species can be identified by the shape of their blow/spout. Humpback whales have a bushy blow pattern.

Exploring the beach at low tide.

The students found lots of green crabs!

Tuesday - Sharks

Carefully touching the shark jaw.

Up close you can see the many layers of teeth in the shark jaw.

Having a look at shark skin using the microscopes.

You can see the dermal denticles on the shark skin through the microscope.

One of the lobsters in the touch tank was releasing her larvae so we had a look at those also. Exciting!!

Learning about shark electroreceptors. Can you feel the electricity?

A shark (spoon) finding fish (pepper) amongst the rocks (salt) using electricity.

Playing the basking shark game. Basking sharks are filter feeders.

Identifying shark teeth based on shape.

Learning how to observe and describe what they see.

We have some great crab hunters! Tiny crab on the beach.

Wednesday - Microscopic Life

We had a few extra friends join us for this Young Explorer program. Please find pictures on this separate post.

Thursday - Seals

Observing the harbour seal anatomy from our own private room.

Preparing the herring and mackerel for the seal feeding.

Unfortunately, the seals were not interested in eating. They are still slimming down their winter blubber layer.

Experiments with ice and salt.

Finding lots of different sizes of green crabs.

Including tiny ones!

Friday - Lobsters

The female lobster was still releasing larvae this morning!

Searching for animals in the intertidal zone.

Sideswimmers

Female crabs with egg sacks.

Making a field guide of the animals we collected from the beach.

The students even found a rock gunnel fish.

Making sea spider crafts.

sea spider

Learning about lobster external anatomy.

Two crabs at once!

Lobsters belong to a group of animals called Arthropods. Crabs, hermit crabs and barnacles fit into that group also.

We look forward to the remainder of the Young Explorer programs at the Aquarium this summer. If your child(ren) would like to join us again just let me know.