For the past month or so, our science "curriculum" (still working on finding a good actual curriculum for science) has focused around the classification tree including the phylums Mullusca (from molis meaning soft, including snails, slugs, octopus, squid....) ecinodermata (ecino = spiny and derm = skin, including sea stars, sea cucumbers and sea urchins), and cnidarians (from knide meaning nettle, including jelly fish, coral and anemones).
Before wrapping up and moving on to arthropods, what better place to go than the Hatfield Marine Science Center. And boy did we get an up close look. We found almost all of the things we had studied!
It was a fun fun trip and I am amazed at all I am learning from this teaching thing :) One volunteer remarked "I have never seen someone so small know classifications. Most adults don't even know that." To which I replied "well, before this year, neither did I." (or at least I didn't retain it).
We were there for octopus feeding time (which only happens three times a week). Did you know that only 2 out of 50,000-80,000 eggs will survive to adulthood? 
Sea urchins 
They were quite hesitant to touch at first. Especially the Cnidarians. By the end, they were loving it. 
Look at those tube feet! 
Signs are interesting when you can read.
BIG tank
Moon Jellies
Searching for the phylums
Jake was thrilled to spot a bat star (blue one)
Noah liked the hands on approach.
Brothers.
A very "hands on" placeSeriously, if you have not visited here, do so. Such a fun place. Once home, we debriefed about our favorite parts of the trip, things we saw, and new things we learned.
By far the most interesting fact of the day was the reproduction process of the angler fish.
Video searching on that led us to this...which ended our day in laughter. God's creation (and creativity) is truely amazing!
4 comments:
We're starting echinoderms this week! :) I *love* how much I've learned too. It's really incredible to revisit knowledge long-forgotten and to learn new things too. It's one of the best parts of this homeschooling journey. :) Have a great week!
We're loving HMSC and the aquarium! Isn't it the best place for curious little minds? Keep up the good work Jodi!
And while I was watching the youtube song, Tyler heard it and thinks it's the most awesome thing he's seen in long time. I have a feeling it's going to circulate the Fisheries and Wildlife department :)
And in a side note, the word verifications for both my comments are fish based: troutto and ketta. I instantly saw "trout" and ketta (keta) is part of the scientific name of Chum Salmon. Yeah, total weird side note.
But thanks for posting the song! We like it :)
Looks like you had a fun day. sure hope you found some tide pools and that the tide was right for viewing sea things.
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