Jason Group - Thursday
Thursday, November 12, 2009
We went and looked at a fake tide pool and looked at both sea stars and sea urchins. They both had tiny little tube feet and grabbed onto us when we touched them. One of the sea stars were stuck on the clear wall and it pushed its stomach out onto the clear wall so that we can see it.
We went to the Marine Mammal Center and learned why all the patients were there. After seeing the animals we walked around and looked at a bunch of posters explaining what the volunteers and scientists do there.
This sea lion was here because it had a illness because of toxins in a certain type of plankton. When the fish eat the plankton, they get the toxin. Then the seals eat the fish and get it. The toxin can cause brain damage if it is not treated. One of the seals in this enclosure looked pretty healthy and was walking around, but the other one was laying on the ground and acting strangely. The volunteer said that that one hasn’t eaten but has a chance a 8:00 pm.
At the evening meeting, we record the garbage, compost and weather of the day in our notebooks.
We learned about what they did to survive in the rough environment of the tide pools. There were some baby sea stars and one of the grown ones had a lump where he had eaten a mussel. By the way, there was a Sun Star, who had eaten ANOTHER SEA STAR!!!! The severed arm was STILL moving!! It hasn’t regenerated yet but~ it moved! :-P! :-P! :-P! :-P!
We examined some creatures that were in the pond that we went to yesterday. There was one that we found that was a predator, but still no one knows what it is - not even the instructors!
Then, we acted out the different kinds of creatures while our partner read about them.
